Unfair Commercial Practices and Misleading Advertising

Résumé du livre

The following chapter is part of a book co-authored by Hans-W. Micklitz, Norbert Reich and Peter Rott. The three authors, in cooperation with the publisher, prepared a comprehensive version which they called “Understanding European Consumer Law,” comprising the central areas of EU consumer law which are of relevance beyond the jurisdiction of the EU itself. Chapter one (Norbert Reich) gives an overall description of EU consumer protection, its development in politics and law, its basic concepts, a theory of consumer rights, the instruments of consumer law, in particular EU Directives, and finally the concept of the “consumer” as “passive economic citizen” who is the central protective subject of law itself. The last section contains a conceptual and reformist outlook on the “future orientation of EU consumer law.” Chapter 2 (Hans-W. Micklitz), here made available, is concerned with advertising and commercial practices law. Chapter 3 (Hans-W. Micklitz) takes up a similar “horizontal” approach with regard to pre-formulated contract terms which had been adopted in 1993 via the Unfair Contract Terms Directive 93/13/EEC and which has found much attention in judicial practice by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), to be reported and analyzed in some detail here. Chapter 4 (Hans-W. Micklitz) is concerned with the “horizontal” consumer sales Directive 1999/44/EC which has introduced certain basic and therefore mandatory consumer rights with regard to the most important transaction in which consumers usually engage. Chapter 5 (Peter Rott) is devoted to the analysis of the recent Directive 2008/48/EC on “credit agreements for consumers” (CCD), repealing the old Directive 87/102/EEC, that aims at “total harmonisation” and thereby sets a precedent for future EU instruments in the field of consumer contract law. Chapter 6 (Hans-W. Micklitz) takes up product liability, regulated by the rather “old” Directive 85/374/EEC which had been amended once by Directive 1999/34/EC after the BSE scandal. Chapter 7 (Norbert Reich) is concerned with cross-border consumer transactions, cross-border breach of consumer law and litigation in cases which are provoked by the fact that harmonization of law in the area of consumer law (and other areas like EU commercial or financial services law) does not lead to uniform standards but must be governed by the traditional mechanisms of private international law. Finally, Chapter 8 (Norbert Reich) takes up different mechanisms of individual and collective consumer protection via remedies and procedures which are promoted, encouraged or even prescribed by the EU. Each author is responsible for his own chapter, but they all have tried to coordinate their views and opinions as far as possible.