US. As of 2003, on the one hand, product liability had expanded around the world within the past two decades to become a "global phenomenon," and therefore, "the United States is no longer the only country with tough product liability rules." On the other hand, the picture looked very different when one "turn[ed] from the law on the books to the law in action." In the real world, the actual protection afforded to consumers by product liability law "depends heavily on whether claims are realistically enforceable," and that depends upon whether the procedural law of the forum state is actually able to facilitate access to justice. Traditionally, European courts have provided no discovery or rather minimal discovery (by American standards). Where available, European discovery is rarely self-executing (that is, automatically effective by operation of law), meaning that the defendant and third parties have no obligation to disclose anything unless and until the plaintiff obtains a court order. Civil law countries strongly dislike and oppose the American principle of broad discovery in civil litigation. For example, since 1968, it has been a crime for a French company to produce commercial information in foreign legal proceedings without express authorization from a French court, and in turn, this has been raised as a defense to discovery by French defendants in American product liability cases. Since the defendant usually possesses most of the extant evidence of a product defect, in most European countries it is "very difficult, if not impossible, for a victim or her lawyer to investigate a product liability case." Other obstacles—especially in civil law countries—include high filing fees, no right to a jury trial, low damages for pain and suffering, the unavailability of punitive damages, and the unavailability (before the 2010s) of class actions. As of 2003, there was no country outside of the United States where plaintiffs were able to recover noneconomic damages above US$300,000 for even the most catastrophic injuries. As of 2015, product liability in Europe "has remained a fairly minor field which generates fewer cases, more modest awards, and rarely makes it into the headlines" (in comparison to its American cousin). In July 2018, European Commission staff reported that from 2000 to 2016, a total of only 798 product liability claims had been filed in the national courts of EU member states. As of 2020, the much smaller number of cases in the UK meant that "English