European Consumer Protection Law: Quo Vadis? –
Thoughts on the Collective Redress Debate
Abstract
On November 11, 2008, the European Commission presented its Green Paper on Consumer Collective Redress. This Green Paper with the purpose “to assess the current state of redress mechanisms … and to provide options to close any gaps to effective redress” and its follow-up materials have taken the initially mere academic debate to an “official” level and have triggered controversial reactions from and among public bodies, scholars, practitioners, enterprises, consumers and related interest groups. They touch upon various issues of current interest in relation to consumers and the protection of their interests; the materials deal inter alia with the nature of involved interests, access to justice for consumers, and (collective) redress mechanisms. Closely related topics, such as the suitability of private and public enforcement of consumer rights, alternatives to (in Europe) unloved American class actions or parallels to and differences from competition law enforcement have been widely discussed. Although some of these issues have to be naturally taken into consideration when analyzing the ongoing debate and giving comments what could or should be done in the future, this paper will primarily take a look at the following categories: classification of involved interests, concepts of access to justice, and the practicability of collective redress mechanisms in the area of European consumer protection law. It is hoped that this concentration will illuminate the issue of enhancing consumer redress from a different angle.
The paper will start with introducing three corner points of interest: the concepts of (1) multilayer interests, (2) access to justice, and (3) redress tools before outlining the ongoing elaborations at EU-level. It will then continue by giving some remarks on the consumer collective redress debate and will highlight some of the major issues at stake. The paper will conclude with an attempt to give some input to overcome potential obstacles in the reform debate by integrating the three focused concepts.