Enforcement Of Consumer Law Research Articles

Do Consumers and Businesses Need a New Architecture of Consumer Law? A Thought Provoking Impulse

The paper is a translation of the Gutachten prepared for the 69. Deutschen Juristentag to be held in September 2012. It pleads for a separate consumer law code outside private law codifications. The benchmarks are: rethinking the concept of the consumer (the vulnerable consumer and the consumer/customer), focusing beyond traditional consumer law on internet sales and on consumer services (telecom, energy, transport, financial services), integrating and developing a consistent approach to consumer law enforcement via individual and collective action, via ADR, courts and administrative bodies. The solution is seen in a movable system (bewegliches System) that allows for connecting substantive rights and remedies to the different concepts of consumers, vulnerable, confident and responsible.

Do Consumers and Businesses Need a New Architecture of Consumer Law? A Thought-Provoking Impulse

The paper is a translation of the Gutachten prepared for the 69. Deutschen Juristentag to be held in September 2012. It pleads for a separate consumer law code outside private law codifications. The benchmarks are: rethinking the concept of the consumer (the vulnerable consumer and the consumer/customer), focusing beyond traditional consumer law on internet sales and on consumer services (telecom, energy, transport, financial services), integrating and developing a consistent approach to consumer law enforcement via individual and collective action, via ADR, courts and administrative bodies. The solution is seen in a movable system (bewegliches System) that allows for connecting substantive rights and remedies to the different concepts of consumers, vulnerable, confident and responsible.

Individual Private Enforcement of Consumer Rights in Civil Courts in Europe

In many areas, mandatory substantive law protects consumers. At first glance, this seems to indicate that the position of consumers is well-regulated and that consumers are well-protected. The question arises, however, whether consumers may actually make use of their substantive rights. Can consumers enforce their contractual rights through the ordinary courts when their counterpart is not willing to provide them with what they are entitled to receive under the contract they concluded with that counterpart? The focus in this paper is on the consumer’s access to justice through the ordinary court system. Therefore, I will address neither the enforcement of consumer rights through regulatory agencies or by way of collective redress, nor the enforcement of individual consumer rights through ADR institutions. In this paper, I will argue that awarding consumer rights without properly regulating the consumer’s access to the court system renders these rights to be unenforceable through the ordinary court system. It is argued that the normal rules of civil procedure in the national courts produce several disincentives for consumers to maintain their rights that they do so in an insufficient manner, which leads to underenforcement of (European) consumer law. Two fairly recent Europeans regulations - the European payment order procedure and the European small claims procedure - help improve the enforcement of consumer law, but do not take away these disincentives sufficiently.

Collective Enforcement of Consumer Law: A Framework for Comparative Assessment

Abstract: This article provides a comparative analysis of collective enforcement of consumer claims in Europe, the US, and Canada. It engages in a comparative institutional analysis and shows the relevance of the institutional framework for assessing the effectiveness of different strategies. Collective enforcement of consumer claims is attracting the attention of both policy makers and scholars. The Lisbon Council of 2007 has placed collective redress at the core of consumer strategy for the near future. The implementation of Directive 98/27 on injunctions, the new regulation on consumer protection 2004/2006, proves the existence of different legal cultures concerning consumer protection and the choice of enforcement mechanisms. A new series of law reforms concerning group actions is taking place in different Member States without the impetus of European legislation, in part as a response to scandals in fi nancial and product markets. These new reforms raise the issue of the effective combination of judicial and administrative enforcement at EU and Member State levels. The article clearly shows that this alternative does not correspond to public–private enforcement, given that judicial enforceability may also be sought by public agencies. It is necessary to rethink the factors upon which to define the combination of administrative and judicial enforcement. The ex ante–ex post division is overly simplistic and does not reflect the current division of labour between courts and agencies. The damages–injunctions combination needs to be tailored to new regulatory functions of remedies in consumer law. Furthermore, the success of a new strategy depends on providing the right incentives and accountability mechanisms to key institutional players. Consumer associations empowered with enforcement need to become more accountable towards members and the general public. Pecuniary and non–pecuniary incentives need to be provided for plaintiffs’ lawyers. These may not be only market driven, but also public policy oriented, thus affecting the selection of claims to be litigated. The piecemeal process should be rationalized with new policy choices to grant greater consumer protection in a strongly competitive environment. Résume: Cet article prévoie une analyse comparative sur l’exécution collective du droit de la consommation en Europe, à Canada et aux Etats–Unis. Il s’engage dans une analyse institutionnelle comparative and démontre l’importance du cadre institutionnel pour mesurer l’effectivité des stratégies différentes. L’exécution collective du droit de la consommation attire l’attention de la politique aussi bien que de la recherche scientifi que. En 2007 le Conseil de Lisbonne a accordé priorité au développement d’une action collective en faveur es consommateurs en Europe. La transposition de la directive 98/27 sur l’action en cessation, la réglementation 2004/2006 sur la coopération dans l’exécution transfrontalière du droit de la consommation prouve l’existence des différentes cultures juridiques en ce qui concerne la protection du consommateur et le choix des moyens de l’exécution. Une bonne partie des Etats Membres ont adopté des reformes en ce qui concerne l’action collective, souvent en réaction aux scandales dans les marchés financiers et les marchés des produits. Les nouvelles réformes législatives soulèvent la question sur une combinaison effective de l’exécution judicaire et administrative au niveau de la CE et des Etats Membres

Willem H. Van Boom and Marco Loos (eds), Collective Enforcement of Consumer Law: Securing Compliance in Europe through Private Group Action and Public Authority Intervention

Willem H. Van Boom and Marco Loos (eds), <i>Collective Enforcement of Consumer Law: Securing Compliance in Europe through Private Group Action and Public Authority Intervention</i>

Effective Enforcement of Consumer Law in Europe: Synchronizing Private, Public, and Collective Mechanisms

In this paper, we argue that there is a need for collective enforcement of consumer law in Europe. We evaluate a number of legal instruments that already have been developed to this end in European law and domestic legal systems. Furthermore, we make suggestions for further policy initiatives and for finding the right balance between private and public enforcement efforts. The analysis offered is partly based on the findings of the contributors to a book that we edited in 2007.

Administrative and Judicial Collective Enforcement of Consumer Law in the US and the European Community

In the consumer society, as it stands today in Western-type democracies, consumers have a far larger choice of products and services originating from all over the world than they did decades ago. Risks associated with products and services have also increased, as have mass problems and mass damages, often in a transborder dimension. The US and the European Community, though battling against common problems, maintain different standard setting and enforcement regimes. This paper focuses on enforcement regimes, thereby distinguishing between administrative enforcement via agencies and judicial collective enforcement via European collective actions and US class actions. The existing theoretical framework depicting administrative and judicial enforcement as alternative strategies is contrasted against modern developments in the US and the EC. In the field of consumer protection administrative control and judicial collective enforcement are being understood more as functional complements than alternatives. Enforcement covers negotiation, settlement, adjudication and arbitration. The analysis of the institutional variables determining the choice between administrative and judicial control - ex ante vs. ex post control, injunctive relief versus damages, personal injuries and economic losses, sector specificity vs. general instruments to protect consumers, public agencies vs. private organisations - provide the ground for preliminary thoughts on a revised theoretical approach.

Public and Private Transnational Enforcement of EU Consumer Law

This article examines in some detail the two main EC law instruments containing specific provisions on powers to enforce consumer law: a 1998 Directive and a 2004 Regulation. The focus is on intra-Community infringements, the envisaged enforcers and their powers, and extraterritorial consumer protection, including a comparison with the Alpine Investments case. Their combined effect on a number of conceivable transnational enforcement scenarios is analysed. Conclusions are drawn in the light of the 2003 OECD Guidelines on transnational enforcement of consumer law, in order to answer this central question: What progress has been made with the 2004 Regulation and how does it fare when judged by the standards set by the OECD? Despite some shortcomings in the private law sphere (the public law aspects are largely satisfactory), the legislative framework improves on the ECJ’s case law by requiring equal protection of consumers based in the home State and abroad.

Involvement of the Trading Standards Officer in implementing the UK Food Safety Bill

The Food Safety Bill for the first time specifically isolates those consumer protection matters generally enforced by Trading Standards Officers and emphasizes the development over many years of the comprehensive service which controls the supply of foodstuffs from production to supermarket shelf. The Act will introduce the European Food Control Directive requiring detailed programmes laying down the nature and frequency of inspections to trade premises. The Directive emphasizes the increasing role of quality assurance in consumer law enforcement, and the earlier development of EC law in matters such as metrology has equipped the Trading Standards Officer with the expertise now required by the Food Control Directive. The need for European co-ordination and adequate early warning is emphasized and the National Information Service developed in the UK and now adopted by several member states is seen as an important initiative which can be developed into a community-wide communications link. The implications for other enforcement agencies in the UK and the current proposals in respect of analytical and testing support are considered.

Consumer Law Enforcement: A National Trading Standards Service?

Consumer Law Enforcement: A National Trading Standards Service?