This article presents the study underlying the evaluation report on the legal regime of bad-faith litigation, carried out by the directorate-general for Justice Policy of the Portuguese Ministry of Justice, which aimed at verifying whether the current solutions to avoid the practice of procedural acts that have the sole purpose of delaying legal proceedings or omitting or misrepresenting facts are adequate and effective. The article analyzes the regime of the socalled bad faith litigation, as well as other regimes with similar purposes. It presents the results of interviews carried out amongst legal professionals and approaches the existing response strategies to this problem in other European Union countries. Finally, it presents conclusions about the adequacy of the regime to avoid the practice of procedural acts that have the sole purpose of delaying legal proceedings or omitting or misrepresenting facts and provides recommendations regarding the need to conduct an extensive debate and promote society awareness.
Bad-faith litigation; Legal regime; Directorate-General for Justice Policy; Network for Legislative Cooperation between the Ministries of Justice of the European Union; Portugal
