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The Directive on E-Commerce is undoubtedly the first comprehensive and E-commerce-specific legal instrument in the European Union. The first part of this article discusses the provisions on the internal market [...]

The central argument which is advanced by this article is that, whilst there is no outright obligation in Brussels I which prevents parallel proceedings between a court action and arbitration between the same parties and concerning a similar cause of action, the revisions in the recast Brussels I, along with the Gazprom interpretation of key non-revised parts of Brussels I, do certainly provide improved support for international commercial arbitration. These do so by giving more scope to national courts to restrict Parallel Proceedings; through anti-suit injunctions issued by an arbitral tribunal; through finding parties taking parallel court action to be in breach of the arbitration agreement; and by giving primacy to the arbitral award where it is irreconcilable with a parallel court judgment. The authors particularly demonstrate that this is made possible because of a changed (diminished) role which is given to the principle of effectiveness of EU law (effet utile) post Gazprom and Brussels I.

This article identifies the tension between the public and the private nature of arbitration and analyses how this tension prevents consumer arbitration of fulfilling important public functions. We conclude that the EU should thrive to introduce a system which facilitates justice for consumers, i.e., a system of dispute resolution which is committed to procedural and substantive public policy. The latter should be preferred over a system which is primarily concerned with the resolution of disputes between businesses and consumers however efficient and fair that system may be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]