Financial Ombudsman: Towards an Effective Customers Rights` Protection in Ukraine

Abstract

This article explores the prerequisites and prospects for introducing the Financial Ombudsman Office in Ukraine as an institute for alternative (extrajudicial) resolution of disputes between consumers and financial service providers. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the draft law on the establishment of the Financial Ombudsman in Ukraine. Considering the existing mechanisms of alternative dispute resolution in Ukraine and the possibility of their application to the issues of financial services consumers’ rights protection, the historical retrospective of the establishment of the Financial Ombudsman institute in Ukraine is considered. The author analyses the legal, institutional and theoretical prerequisites for the implementation of one of the Financial Ombudsman models operating in other countries. The focus is on the analysis of the compliance of the draft law on the establishment and operation of the institute with the principles set out in Directive 2013/11 on consumer ADR. At the same time, it is stated why one or another structure of the legal regulation of the establishment and activity of the Financial Ombudsman Office in Ukraine was chosen. The author, as one of the experts involved in the drafting of the law, concludes that, despite the compliance of the draft law with the European principles of the ABC, there is, unfortunately, no prospect of its adoption as a legal basis for setting up a Financial Ombudsman Office in Ukraine at the moment and in the coming year, and analyses the causes.