This book investigates the regime of consumer benchmarks in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and explores to what extent this regime meets each of the goals of the Directive. In particular, it assesses whether the consumer benchmarks are suitable in terms of achieving the three goals of the Directive: achieving a high level of consumer protection, increasing the smooth functioning of the internal market, and improving competition in the market as such. In addition to providing a thorough analysis of the consumer benchmarks and their relationship to the goals of the Directive, at a more practical level, the book provides insight into the working and consequences of the benchmarks that can be used in the evaluation of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and its application by the CJEU. This assessment is important because the Directive, while promising to regulate unfair commercial practices in a way that achieves the Directive’s goals, has removed the possibility for Member States to regulate unfair commercial practices themselves.

One of the most important EU consumer protection directives of the past decade, the 2005 Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, or UCPD, is brought under examination in this stimulating volume. Bringing together leading experts in the comparative law and consumer law domain, the book discusses the impact of the Directive and whether the many possible issues identified at its inception have been borne out in practice. Divided into four parts of 'Implementation, Approximation and Harmonization', 'Vulnerability', 'The UCP Directive and Other Regimes', and finally 'Enforcement', the volume examines the various policy developments, the growing body of case law, the decisions of relevant national enforcement authorities, as well as the legislative debates which have surrounded the implementation of the UCPD in Member States. This book provides a valuable assessment of the impact of a major EU directive almost ten years after its adoption, and as such will be of interest to academics, legal practitioners and the judiciary working in the areas of European and Consumer law.

The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive is the most important directive in the field of trade practices to have emerged from the EC but it builds upon European activity which has sought to regulate trade practices on both a sectoral and horizontal level. It is an umbrella provision, which uses general clauses to protect consumers. How effective this approach is and how it relates the existing acquis are fundamental issues for debate. This work provides a critical appraisal of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive linking discussion of it to general debates about how fair trading should be regulated. It explains how the Directive fits into the existing acquis. It also examines national traditions where these are necessary to explain the European approach, as in the case of general clauses. The book will be a valuable tool for any student of consumer law seeking to understand the thinking behind the directive and how it will affect national laws. It will also influence policy makers by suggesting how the directive should be interpreted and what policy lies behind its formulation. Businesses and their advisers will use the book as a means of understanding the new regulatory climate post-the directive.

Recoge:1. Time for clear legislation - 2. Unfair commercial practices - 3. Who is concerned? - 4. The black list - 5. Implementing the directive.

Bulletin of Comparative Labour Relations Volume 108 The progressive expansion of the phenomenon of posting of workers – the practice whereby a worker is sent for a limited period of time to another Member State in order to provide a service – is a formidable bone of contention in the conflict between a fully integrated internal market economy and Member States’ aims to protect domestic social standards. This book challenges the recently adopted Directive (EU) 957/2018, which came into effect in July 2020, by examining the relevant EU regulatory framework and investigating the actual quantitative dimension of the posting phenomenon and its real impact on the EU labour market. In the process, the author exposes a serious misalignment of the legal framework provided for by the new Directive with the EU values and principles of equality, solidarity and fair competition. Drawing on a wide variety of sources – including Court of Justice case law, Advocate Generals’ opinions, Eurostat data, Commission documents and reports, and academic literature – the author provides in-depth analyses of such elements of the problem as the following: proper definition of the concepts of ‘posting’ and ‘posted worker’ in EU law; host country’s discretion in relation to the part of domestic regulation it can impose on posted employees; misconceived clash between social rights and economic freedoms; coordination of national social security systems; proliferation of unlawful and fraudulent practices; ‘regime shopping’ and exploitation of existing regulatory loopholes; misleading association of posting with issues of ‘social dumping’ and ‘unfair competition’; orientation of political influence during the drafting process of relevant EU legislation; expected controversial economic impact of Directive (EU) 957/2018; concrete realisation of the EU values and principles of equality, solidarity and fair competition; and definition and pursuit of a ‘European social model’. Normative arguments developed in the course of the analysis put forward viable recommendations for future improvements in the field. The Union’s commitment to the development of a ‘European social model’ cannot avoid taking into account the matters of equality, solidarity and fair competition. In this sense, given the increasing prominence of the free movement of services in shaping a European labour market characterised by an ever-growing degree of mobility, this book’s analysis of the phenomenon of posting of workers may serve as a litmus test of political and legislative action at EU level. In its dual analytic and normative aspect, the book takes a giant step towards future discussions and developments in the area of intra-EU labour mobility. It will be welcomed by legal practitioners in labour and social security law and industrial relations, legal scholars, EU institutions and agencies, businesses and trade unions.

This book asks what is European consumer access to justice, and how we can improve it by means of procedural and substantive laws?

This book represents the fruit of a conference held in Oxford on March 3, 2006 under the auspices of the Institute of European and Comparative Law in the Oxford University Law Faculty. Directive 2005/29 is an important new measure in the construction of a legal framework apt to promote an integrated economic space in the European Union. It establishes a harmonised regime governing the control of unfair commercial practices. As such it represents an important exercise in the use of new rules and new techniques, and therefore poses new challenges to EU lawyers. The purpose of this book is to inform and to explore the issues raised by the Directive, issues which are of academic and practical interest, in helping to understand the evolution of European consumer law within the broader programme of European market regulation. The intense practical significance of this Directive, which heralds a new regime, is likely to provoke commercial operators to seek to exploit opportunities to pursue practices previously suppressed.

This book addresses the various sustainability issues that the tourism industry has faced over time like the trend from over-tourism to under-tourism or from tourism in increasingly distant destinations to a new local tourism with new needs. It also highlights how contracts, both between businesses and those with consumers, can represent tools for the financial, ecological and social sustainability of the tourism industry.

This book examines the present state of harmonization of unfair competition law in Europe. It discusses the particular approach to unfair competition law in the 10 new Member States and the possible impact on the future development of European unfair competition law. The book presents new insight in the importance of unfair competition law, especially in countries with a developing market economy.

The Yearbook of Consumer Law provides a valuable outlet for high-quality scholarly work which tracks developments in the consumer law field with a domestic, regional and international dimension.