Search

The question of effective enforcement of consumer rights has been widely discussed for many years in the European Union. The models of consumer protection significantly vary in the individual Member States. Typically, consumers can claim their rights both at an individual and collective level. The systems of enforcement of consumer protection are either public, private or mixed, where both types of enforcement function in a parallel way. The goal of the paper is to discuss the issue of various legal mechanisms that function in the Member States, serving the consumers as a means of collective redress. The main analysis focuses on the legal solutions adopted in Belgium (first part of the paper), UK and the Netherlands (second part of the paper). In particular, the author presents the complementary character of the public and private mechanisms used to enforce the consumer rights. The paper utilises dogmatic and analytical methods for the process of interpretation of the normative material and for the analysis of case law. The study uses the comparative perspective to identify solutions emerging from effective practices found in legal systems of the Member States. The paper proposes several legal solutions to adopt in the Polish law. The findings emerging from the analysis show that both competent consumer organisations commencing group proceedings and experienced judges who choose between opt-in and opt-out systems are vital in the process of effective enforcement of consumer rights. The conclusions from the study are useful in mapping out the legislative process and the analysis discussed in the paper may be extended to legal systems of other Member States.

In the context of private enforcement, collective redress is assuming an important role at European Union level as a procedural means to protect collective interests. Legislative developments show a twofold approach: a horizontal framework with common principles has been proposed, though with non-binding nature, and sector-specific legislation has introduced collective redress procedures mainly for consumers. However, also in other fields it shall be a viable procedural remedy, such as in the employment context. Rarely, the Court of Justice addressed collective proceedings and private international law issues, mainly related to the jurisdictional regime. Cross-border situations are not specifically addressed in the relevant Regulations, neither among the common principles or in the specific legislation. An exception is the reference to the extension of the application of the existing Regulations included in the Proposal on representative actions for consumer protection. The horizontal and sectoral approaches, including the applicability of the existing private international law rules, particularly on jurisdiction, are thus debated.

Protection of the principle of free market competition is one of the fundamental principles on which the European Union was established, and as such it has been embedded in the Union’s founding treaties. Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU explicitly prohibit agreements which prevent and restrict free market competition, and abuse of dominant market position. However, despite the fact that the principle of free market competition is one of the cornerstones of the EU, in practice there are numerous cases where companies disrupt the internal market through destructive conducts. Led by the desire for greater profit, very often companies try to circumvent the internal market rules, while remaining unsanctioned in the process. In these situations, beside inflicting harm on the market and on the economies of the Member-States as a whole, the offenders also inflict concrete damage on their competitors, and direct and indirect customers. In this regard, an important issue which arises is the question of indemnifying specific victims of such anticompetitive conducts. In the beginning, the European Commission through the Directorate General for Competition was the sole body which had jurisdiction in the enforcement of EU competition law. However, this approach proved highly inefficient as it was impossible to supervise the conducts on such a large scale, especially when taken into consideration the number of companies which operated on the market and the absence of clear division between internal market of the union and national market. It was even more difficult to provide compensation for all which were affected. This resulted in an initiative for decentralization of the enforcement of EU competition law, with great emphasis being placed on private enforcement. The aim of this article is to give insight of the methods for private enforcement of EU competition law. The paper firstly provides an overview of the existing legislation within the European Union concerning the enforcement of EU competition law. It then turns to the Directive 2014/104/EU, the so-called “damages directive”, which is considered the crucial instrument for providing more efficient protection of the internal market. The article examines the level of transposition of the Directive among Member-States, and the effects of its implementation. In addition, two important initiatives have arisen which will be also subject of analysis. The first initiative is for the increase of power of national competition authorities, which has resulted in the adoption of the Directive (EU) 2019/1. The second initiative is for enhanced level of protection of the consumers, through the introduction of collective redress mechanism in the form of class actions against the offending companies. This initiative has resulted in proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, which has been accepted by the European Parliament in 2019. In anticipation of the final text, the article examines the key points contained within the proposal. Finally, the article gives an insight into the current state of play of the national legislation of Republic of North Macedonia, and the level of harmonization with the EU acquis.

This article investigates important shifts in the way that rights are enforced in the EU. On the one hand, the Commission is increasingly withdrawing from centralised rights enforcement, initiating...

The European Commission initiative on collective redress was a failed attempt to introduce a form of class action in the European Union. Business organizations were firmly opposing the proposal, while citizen interest groups were mobilized to support it. The outcome was rather puzzling because some previous research suggests that business organizations in the European Union most often find themselves unsuccessful in defending the status quo, especially in the field of environmental and consumer protection. Business lobbying success in this case is explained by the low media salience of the issue and diverging preferences among public officials. The article illustrates how lobbying success in the European Union can also be achieved by maintaining the status quo and contributes to our understanding of contextual factors, most notably the role of policymakers.

The recent initiative of the European Commission (hereinafter: EC) to empower consumer organisations to seek compensation on behalf of a group of consumers that have been harmed by an illegal commercial practice by way of introducing a Proposal of a Directive on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers and repealing the Injunctions Directive 2009/22/EC (hereinafter: the Directive Proposal), if successful, should mark a new era of collective redress at EU level. In the light of these developments, the paper will first present the background of the Proposal, the present state of EU collective redress mechanisms. It will focus on current issues, such as cross-border collective redress litigation in the context of Brussels I (Recast) Regulation. Namely, after the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal providing for efficient cross-border collective redress mechanisms at EU level has been recognized as one of the main regulatory challenges. Although at this point the outcome of the EC’s initiative is uncertain, the central part of the paper will evaluate the crucial aspects of the Proposal. The conclusion will address key findings and emphasize possible effects of the proposed changes on the future redress opportunities for EU consumers.

Matters of jurisdiction seem to be among aspects of judicial cooperation in civil and commercial matters in which so far most regulatory activity of the European union (hereinafter: EU) has been undertaken. Upon close examination of the rules on jurisdiction of courts in civil and commercial matters in the existing legal framework at EU level, it becomes obvious that they contain the same principle of territoriality. At the same time, in the course of modernization both at the national and EU level it seems that the principle of functionality is becoming more dominant. A question whether it is justified to depart from rules on jurisdiction based on the principle of territoriality and confer jurisdiction on a court other than that of the defendant’s domicile based on the principle of functionality in a cross-border case has arisen recently in joined cases C- 400/13 and C- 408/13. Within the context of a rather ambiguous view the CJEU took in its decision in the aforementioned cases, the paper examines if enhancing functionality through concentration of jurisdiction will eventually become an advantage or obstacle to access to justice. The analysis includes presentation and comparison of provisions on jurisdiction in cross-border cases based on the principle of territoriality and functionality respectively in several EU legal instruments regulating private international law and civil procedure matters. The paper attempts to draw attention to models of achieving procedural efficiency in different fields of EU’s activity, such as enhancing consumer protection or introducing cross-border collective redress.

The EU has an established history of public enforcement concerning antitrust infringements under what are now Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Yet, until recently, this has not been true in respect of private compensatory damages actions in relation to the said articles. Hence, these actions are now seen as reinforcing the existing deterrent provided by pubic enforcement fines. This paper focuses upon the ongoing sea change that aims to enable and encourage compensatory damages claims in relation to harm caused by breaches of 101 and 102 TFEU. It reveals that both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Commission have played pioneering roles in advancing this sea change. It further asserts that, although the rulings of the CJEU have created a hybrid architecture that makes possible private actions in relation to the said breaches under Member state procedural laws before national courts, the architecture itself is problematic as it fails to guarantee that Member states’ procedural rules have a high degree of uniformity, thereby failing to guarantee a regulatory level playing field across the Union concerning the said damages actions. Moreover, not only is the architecture problematic, but it needed further development in respect of rules and requirements in several key areas, such as the right of evidential disclosure, the limitation period issue, collective redress and the quantification of harm, so as to facilitate and encourage claims. The Commission was aware of these concerns, and this paper explores its response. The issues could have been addressed by the establishment of a set of EU procedural rules which national courts would apply in the said actions but the Commission decided upon a different way forward. Working with the said hybrid architecture, and through the vehicle of the 2014 Directive on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union, the Commission has amended and created rules and requirements which will form part of Member states’ domestic procedural law—and therefore will be applied by national courts—in order to establish a more level regulatory playing field across the Union which should facilitate and encourage private compensatory damages actions for harm caused by EU antitrust breaches. Of course, a more level playing field means that differences will still remain. Moreover, it will be some time before the success of the Directive can be gauged, and further measures may be required in the future.

This article analyses the European Union competition law enforcement system and its developments. Data shows that the current European Union competition law enforcement system is ineffective. The systematic analysis by the author of the United States competition law enforcement system shows that an opt-out class action mechanism for competition law enforcement established in the United States enables effective enforcement of competition law. Whereas, there is no uniform collective redress system across the European Union. The national regimes of European Union Member States regarding collective redress are diverse. These considerations implies the need for a uniform collective redress system across the European Union.