Time to Do the Job Properly—The Case for a New Approach to EU Consumer Legislation

Abstract

EU Consumer Law, Cross-border contracts, Regulation,

Business-to-Consumer Harassment, Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the UK—A Distorted Picture of Uniform Harmonization?

“…Even with the existence of a general doctrine of autonomous meaning in EU law, 48 national courts in practice rarely refer concepts in consumer protection directives to the ECJ as they would rather prefer interpretations within the confines of the national legislation (Loos 2007;Twigg-Flesner 2010). This seems the case in the UK where the highest court declined to make references in two high profile cases.…”

“…429-432, 2010. With a few exceptions (for example, Hondius 2010) commentators have been largely critical of maximum harmonization with some suggesting targeted harmonization directives instead (Ackermann 2010;Faure 2008;Micklitz and Reich 2009;Reich 2005;Rott and Terryn 2009;Twigg-Flesner 2010;Wilhelmsson 2008). Some scholars have also questioned the effectiveness of using directives in consumer protection.…”

“…The paper proceeds on the basis that the extent of harmonization is determined by the content of a directive. It does not examine whether regulations should replace directives as consumer protection tools (Reich 2005;Twigg-Flesner 2010) or the merits of full harmonization (Howells 2002(Howells , 2007Howells and Wilhelmsson 2003;Karsten and Sinai 2003;Stuyck et al 2006, pp. 115-117;Twigg-Flesner and Parry 2007, pp.…”