1  The pursuit of a high level of consumer protection is one of the goals of the European Union (EU). It is contained, although not explicitly mentioned, in the EU’s objective to pursue a highly competitive social market economy (Art. 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU)). Ancillary objectives stated in Article 3(3) of the TEU can also affect consumer protection, as the protection of the environment and the goal of combatting social exclusion can overlap with the goal of consumer protection (Weatherill, Law and Values in the European Union, 136–37).

2  Specific reference to the pursuit of a high level of consumer protection is made in Articles 12, 114(3), and 169(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In addition, Article 38 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (‘CFR’) states that Union policies should pursue a high level of consumer protection. Article 12 of the TFEU provides a legal basis for the integration of consumer protection with other policies and actions of the EU. The other provisions provide legal bases for the harmonization (or the approximation) of the laws of the member states with an eye to the pursuit of a high level of consumer protection. The EU shares competence with the member states in relation to consumer protection law and policy (Art. 4(2) TFEU).

3  Article 114(3) of the TFEU (formerly Art. 95 EC Treaty; Art. 100a EC Treaty (old)) has the longest history and as such has been the primary basis for the harmonisation of consumer law by the EU. This means that consumer protection in the EU context developed as a corollary to the integration of the internal market. The legal framework through which consumer protection is being pursued is, in accordance with this, a combination of legislative harmonisation through Directives and Regulations (positive harmonization) and the monitoring of national consumer laws in the light of the free movement of goods and services (negative harmonization). Consumer welfare is also an object of EU competition law.

4  The pursuit of consumer protection, arguably, has resulted in outcomes that go beyond the requirements of the internal market. The EU legislator has been a driving force for legislation, using Article 114 of the TFEU as a legal basis that can hardly be challenged (Weatherill, Contract Law of the Internal Market, 58 ff). Further, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has played a pivotal role in this process. Scholars regard it as consumer-friendly in its judgments concerning the interpretation of consumer law Directives and Regulations (Unberath and Jonhston 1237). Since the adoption of the CFR in 2009 the Court has also used this text, in particular Article 47, as a basis for ensuring the effective enforcement of consumer rights in the EU member states (Micklitz and Reich 771).

5  The consumer is, with some variations in the wording, defined as a natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside their trade, business, craft, or profession (cf Art. 2(1) Consumer Rights Directive (‘CRD’); Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights, amending Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC and repealing Directive 85/577/EEC and Directive 97/7/EC). Consumer contracts are agreements between a consumer and a business, the latter being defined almost as a mirror image of the consumer, namely a natural or legal person who is acting for purposes related to his trade, business, craft, or profession (cf Art. 2(2) CRD).

6  The national laws of the EU member states contain sometimes slightly diverging definitions. Also, the qualification as ‘consumer’ in relation to a dual-purpose contract, which contains both business and consumer aspects, can differ between national laws. EU law, also, has not settled on one definition. While Directive (EU)2019/771 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods (‘Consumer Sales Directive’) leaves it to national law to determine whether a buyer acts as a consumer—for the application of the CRD a dual-purpose contract is regarded as a consumer contract if ‘the trade purpose is so limited as not to be predominant in the overall context of the contract’ (recital 17 CRD). In disputes concerning the conflict of laws, however, the test is a different one. In Gruber, the Court held that a dual-purpose contract does not qualify as a consumer contract ‘unless the trade or professional purpose is so limited as to be negligible in the overall context of the supply, the fact that the private element is predominant being irrelevant in that respect’ (Gruber at para. 54). One explanation for this distinction can be that in conflict of laws regulation rules concerning consumer protection form an exception to the general rules on competence and applicable law (see Art. 15 Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (Brussels I Regulation); Art. 6 Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I Regulation)).

7  While the notion of the consumer as a non-professional party is common to the understanding of the consumer concept around the world, one specific aspect for EU law is its focus on the ‘average consumer’ as a normative concept in free movement regulation and in harmonized consumer protection legislation. The average consumer is defined as a consumer who is ‘reasonably well-informed and reasonably observant and circumspect’ (cf CJEU Gut Springenheide, para. 31). The concept was developed in the context of free movement regulation as a means by which to assess national consumer protection laws. The Court referred to the average consumer as a normative benchmark for assessing whether information was potentially misleading for consumers. The concept was later copied in harmonized consumer law, namely in Article 5(2)(b) and recital 18 of Directive 2005/29/EC concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (‘UCPD’). It has been criticized for not providing a realistic normative standard, as the average consumer is presumed to be a rational actor who reads and understands information. In recent case law, the CJEU gives an opening for nuancing that notion in the light of insights from behavioural studies (see Case C-195/14, Teekanne; Case C-611/14, Canal Digital Danmark A/S).

8  Besides the average consumer, EU law also on occasion protects categories of ‘vulnerable consumers’. The UCPD uses this as an alternative benchmark besides the average consumer. Article 5(3) of the UCPD stipulates: ‘[c]ommercial practices which are likely to materially distort the economic behaviour only of a clearly identifiable group of consumers who are particularly vulnerable to the practice or the underlying product because of their mental or physical infirmity, age or credulity in a way which the trader could reasonably be expected to foresee, shall be assessed from the perspective of the average member of that group’.

9  The emergence of digital services, in many cases offered through online platforms, has rekindled debates on the categorization of consumers and businesses in private law. It is in this context often unclear whether a small supplier is acting in a professional capacity or not. Many suppliers on online platforms start as hobbyists and over time scale up their activities. Although some guidelines exist on assessing when such suppliers should be regarded as professional traders and hence subject to rules of European consumer law in their dealings with consumer-buyers (see eg Case C-105/17, Kamenova), it has been suggested that rules should be developed that are particularly tailored to this category, referred to as ‘prosumers’ (Toffler; an alternative term, the ‘hybrid consumer’ is used by Riefa).

10  Consumer protection law in Europe is intertwined with the building of the EU internal market. Rules in this field were developed as a corollary to market integration measures, and the primary legal basis for harmonization has been the internal market provision of the Treaty (Art. 114 TFEU). This means that its substance is focused on the position of the consumer as an economic actor in that market. EU consumer law is regarded as instrumental to the goal of integration of the internal market (Michaels, 2011, 139). That is so even if Article 169 of the TFEU provides a wider basis for harmonisation, as most relevant laws are made under Article 114 of the TFEU. In the national laws of the member states, by contrast, consumer law is embedded within doctrinal legal systems and within the social policies of that member state. These very different premises sometimes lead to conflicts or resistance against the influence of EU law on member states’ laws.

11  Micklitz has conceptualized the distinction between European consumer law and national laws through the concept of ‘access justice’, or Zugangsgerechtigkeit. The concept sits somewhere in between the allocative (libertarian) justice that characterises market law and the expressions of social distributive justice seen in national laws (Micklitz, 2018, 8 ff). It embodies the idea that the rules of European private law developed by the European legislator and the Court are meant to empower actors to pass the threshold to taking part in the internal market. As a normative benchmark, such is Micklitz’s claim, the concept of access justice can provide guidance to the EU legislature as well as to national legislatures to ensure that all consumers and workers can be included in the EU internal market and, by extension, in society.

12  This is one way to conceptualize the interplay between the internal market rationale of EU consumer law and the juridical rational of the member states. Other theoretical perspectives have engaged with this question from the viewpoint of economic efficiency (Gomez; Wagner 995; Eindenmüller 69), general principles of EU law (Leczykiewicz 174), and legal pluralism (Michaels, 2013, 139; Smits 323; Mak).

13  While most perspectives on EU governance confirm that there are openings for the inclusion of social rights, at this stage of EU integration consumer protection law is primarily concerned with the economic role of consumers in the market. The main body of consumer law focuses on the harmonization of laws concerning business-to-consumer (B2C) contracts, and some rules relate to tort and procedural law (see further under section D below). Harmonized legislation in these fields aims to take away barriers to trade in the internal market. That objective not only benefits consumers, for whom goods and services should become available across the EU, but also businesses. The existence of legal divergence between member states as a factor that hinders cross-border trade is one of the most used justifications for harmonizing legislation.

14  The harmonization of EU consumer law started off in the 1980s and took a flight during the 1990s and early 2000s. In those years, around twenty new directives and regulations were adopted. In recent years harmonization has slowed down and new harmonized rules have been adopted mostly in relation to the EU’s Digital Single Market project. Existing directives have however been subject to a large-scale review (the so-called ‘Fitness Check’), which concluded that the majority of consumer protection directives functions satisfactorily and that minor adjustments will be sufficient to keep them up-to-date with current practices.

15  Harmonized legislation is mostly focused on specific areas of consumer law, as reflected in the following list:

• •  Directive 85/374/EC on product liability

• •  Directive 85/577/EC on off-premises contracts (repealed)

• •  Directive 90/314/EEC on package travel (repealed)

• •  Directive 97/7/EC on distance sales (repealed)

• •  Directive 99/44/EC on consumer sales (repealed 1 January 2022)

• •  Directive 2000/31/EC on e-commerce

• •  Directive 2006/123/EC on services

• •  Directive 2008/48/EC on consumer credit

• •  Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit

• •  Directive (EU) 2015/2302 on package travel

• •  Directive (EU) 2019/770 on digital content

• •  Directive (EU) 2019/771 on consumer sales

• •  Directive (EU) 2019/2161 on the modernisation of consumer law

16  A number of directives, however, have a broader scope and in that sense can be said to horizontally apply to consumer contracts in Europe. They are Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms in consumer contracts (‘UCTD’); the UCPD; and the CRD.

17  During the 1990s and 2000s, when the harmonization of European consumer law experienced its heyday, projects were instigated by the European Commission aiming at a more comprehensive harmonization of private law in Europe. Under the aegis of the Commission, a group of legal academics conducted a comparative study of legal systems in Europe, resulting in a Draft Common Frame of Reference (‘DCFR’) for European private law (Study Group on a European Civil Code and Research Group on EC Private Law). The DCFR contained principles, definitions, and model rules on core areas of private law (contracts and obligations, tort, unjustified enrichment, and the acquisition and loss of ownership of goods).

18  The DCFR formed the basis for a more focused legislative proposal for a Common European Sales Law (‘CESL’). The protracted discussion of this proposal in the course of the legislative process and the eventual withdrawal of the proposal in 2015 marked a, perhaps temporary, endpoint for the ambition to harmonize private laws across Europe beyond specific fields. Although it is hard to pinpoint specific factors for the failure of the proposed CESL, reference has been made to a lack of political will or consensus between the member states on the need for such an instrument (Mak and Luzak 67).

19  On a reflective note, the stall of harmonization projects in the field of European private law fits within broader trends concerning the relationship between the EU and its member states. The EU has faced a number of crises in recent years which have strained the constitutional framework on which it is built, such as the Greek debt crisis, Brexit, the immigration crisis, the judicial crisis in Poland, and most recently the Covid-19 crisis.

20  Another explanation for the decreasing attention for legislative harmonisation in the field of European private law can be that the development of rules in that field generally is moving away from legislation and towards governance, private regulation, and standardisation. An increasing amount of scholarship adopts this perspective (Micklitz, 2009, 3; Schulte-Nölke 135).

21  Furthermore, regulation is not completely dead in this field. The introduction of new harmonized law has been part of the EU’s Digital Single Market Agenda and has resulted in the adoption of Directive (EU) 2019/770 on digital content (accompanied by a revised and modernized Consumer Sales Directive) and Directive (EU) 2019/2161 on the modernisation of consumer law. In December 2020 a proposal for a Digital Services Act package was presented, aimed at regulating online platforms and including measures of consumer protection. These developments are however a return to the traditional measure-by-measure incremental approach to EU lawmaking in consumer law. The European Commission’s more ambitious agenda for the harmonisation of European private law seems to have stalled for the moment.

22  Substantively, consumer protection in EU law has primarily been pursued through an information-oriented approach. Legislation imposes information duties on traders and suppliers with regard to terms of (specific) consumer contracts, transparency of terms is a central requirement in the UCTD, and assessments of unfairness in the UCPD or consumer confusion in free movement cases rely upon the understanding of a reasonably well-informed average consumer.

23  This approach fits with a neoclassical economic rationale, which regards consumers as rational actors who reach optimally efficient outcomes in a given market on the basis of information provided to them. When, on the one hand, European competition law provides the conditions for a fair and competitive market, and hence the supply of a variety of products and services, consumer protection rules ensure that consumers can identify which products or services best fit their needs (characteristics) and are of good quality (Ramsay ch. 2).

24  In recent years the information paradigm in EU consumer law has been criticised and nuanced on the basis of insights from behavioural studies. These studies reveal that consumers rationality is bounded, meaning that their cognitive abilities do not allow for making rational decision as assumed in economic models based on neoclassical theory. Cognitive limitations exist in the form of biases and heuristics. The brain is wired to reach decisions based on presumptions and rules of thumb as short-cuts in cases where information cannot be processed, eg because of its complexity (Tversky and Kahneman 1124).

25  Scholarship in the field of behavioural studies emerged slower in Europe than in the United States, where it has its origin. However, in recent years scholars in the field of European consumer law have applied the insights from behavioural psychology and economics to questions of regulation. Also, in some cases experiments have been conducted to test the behaviour of consumers in the EU and the influence of EU consumer law (Alemanno and Sibony; see also a project led by Luzak on ‘The ABC of Online Disclosure Duties: Towards a More Uniform Assessment of the Transparency of Consumer Information in Europe’). Further, the CJEU has in its case law on unfair commercial practices given an opening to assessing the understanding of an average consumer in the light of insights from behavioural studies (Teekanne; Canal Digital Danmark A/S).

26  The CJEU has played an important role in the development of consumer protection law in Europe. At least three strands can be identified in the Court’s case law. They concern the free movement of goods, the interpretation of EU secondary law (in particular EU directives), and the influence of fundamental rights laid down in the Charter.

27  With regard to the free movement of goods, the Court’s seminal judgment in Cassis de Dijon identified consumer protection as one of the grounds on which national measures could be justified even if they constitute barriers to trade in the internal market (Rewe Zentral AG v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für). The rule of reason holds that ‘[o]bstacles to movement within the Community resulting from disparities between the national laws relating to the marketing of the products in question must be accepted in so far as those provisions may be recognized as being necessary in order to satisfy mandatory requirements relating in particular to the effectiveness of fiscal supervision, the protection of public health, the fairness of commercial transactions and the defence of the consumer’ (Cassis de Dijon, para. 8). While this ruling could have given significant space to the member states to pursue their own national consumer protection policies, the Court has in subsequent case law kept a tight rein on the expansion of national consumer laws. In many free movement cases, the Court has found national measures of consumer protection to be unnecessary to achieve that legislation’s stated goal and therefore contrary to the principle of proportionality. The Court’s position on this could be explained by a desire to secure the position of EU law’s fundamental freedoms in relation to national laws (Unberath and Johnston 1238, 1283).

28  The sceptical attitude of the CJEU to national measures of consumer protection can be contrasted with a supportive attitude towards EU secondary law adopted in the pursuit of a high level of consumer protection. The Court has given a boost to the protection of consumers in particular through its case law on the ex officio testing of unfair terms in consumer contracts. The case law in this field is vast and this entry will therefore only list the cases in which the CJEU first drew the outlines for the ex officio assessment of unfair terms in consumer contracts. In Cases C-240/98 to C-244/98, Océano, the Court held that national courts can of their own motion assess the fairness of standard terms in a consumer contract. Case C-168/05, Mostaza Claro, added that national courts not only can, but that they must assess terms that are potentially unfair. Subsequent case law refined the conditions under which national judges are obliged to assess potentially unfair terms. Case C-243/08, Pannon, established that a national court is required to examine, of its own motion, the unfairness of a contractual term where it has available to it the legal and factual elements necessary for that task. Where it considers such a term to be unfair, it must not apply it, except if the consumer opposes that non-application. Case C-40/08, Asturcom, clarified that the requirement for ex officio testing of unfair terms also applies to cases concerning the enforcement of an arbitration award which has become final and which was made in the absence of the consumer. The obligation exists if the national court has available the legal and factual elements necessary for the task, and under the condition that rules for the enforcement of EU law are not less favourable than those for the ex officio testing of rules of domestic law. The procedural conditions for the ex officio assessment of unfair terms by national courts were further clarified in Case C-470/12, Pohotovost’. National courts in some cases gave judgments refining the modalities for the ex officio assessment of unfair terms within the context of their own national procedural laws (see eg in the Netherlands, Heesakkers/Voets, Dutch Supreme Court, 13 September 2013, NJ 2014/274) (compare Beka).

29  The CJEU also gave a number of judgments concerning the question of what the consequences should be of setting aside unfair terms in a consumer contract. Case C-618/10, Banco Español, held that national legislation may not allow a national court, in the case where it finds that an unfair term in a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer is void, to modify that contract by revising the content of that term. However, this ruling was nuanced by the Court’s judgment in Kásler. In that case, the CJEU held that if a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer cannot continue in existence after an unfair term has been deleted, that provision does not preclude a rule of national law enabling the national court to cure the invalidity of that term by substituting for it a supplementary provision of national law.

30  The Court in Kásler also provided guidance on the application of the transparency requirement applicable to essential terms of the contract (Art. 4(2) UCTD). The Court held that ‘the requirement that a contractual term must be drafted in plain intelligible language is to be understood as requiring not only that the relevant term should be grammatically intelligible to the consumer’ but also that the consumer should be able to assess the economic consequences for him which derive from it (paras 73 and 75).

31  In its case law concerning the UCTD the Court has finally also started to give some guidance on the application of the substantive fairness test laid down in Article 3(1) of the Directive. Aziz, clarifies that ‘the concept of “significance imbalance” to the detriment of the consumer must be assessed in the light of an analysis of the rules of national law applicable in the absence of any agreement between the parties, in order to determine whether, and if so to what extent, the contract places the consumer in a less favourable legal situation than that provided for by the national law in force’. Further, in order to assess ‘whether the imbalance arises ‘‘contrary to the requirement of good faith’’, it must be determined whether the seller or supplier, dealing fairly and equitably with the consumer, could reasonably assume that the consumer would have agreed to the term concerned in individual contract negotiations’ (para. 76).

32  The CJEU has, as a third strand, increasingly relied upon the CFR as a basis for consumer protection. Although the Charter contains a separate provision on consumer protection (Art. 38), in practice Article 47 on the effectiveness of remedies for the enforcement of EU law has been the main ground for extending consumer protection. The provision has been used, for example, as a basis for the effectuation of consumer protection against unfair terms and, by extension, against eviction from a mortgaged home. In Aziz the Court held that a Spanish procedural rule allowing eviction on the grounds of non-payment of mortgage instalments should be set aside in cases where a consumer had instigated proceedings against the mortgage lender to challenge unfair terms in the mortgage agreement. Case C-169/14, Sánchez Morcillo, confirmed that ruling with explicit reference to Article 47 of the CFR and established that the Spanish legislator needed to do yet more work to ensure that its procedural law offered effective judicial remedies for consumers to enforce their rights derived from UCTD (on the particularities of the new Spanish legislation, see also joined cases Unicaja Banco SA v Hidalgo Rueda and ors; BBVA SA v Peñalva López; Banco Primus v Gutiérrez García). In a round-about way, therefore, the Court lent support to the right to housing which, although not referred to in the judgment, is laid down in Article 7 of the CFR. Article 7 enshrines the right to respect of private and family life, including respect of one’s home. As a fundamental right with a more principled character, Article 7 cannot form the basis of individual actions by consumers like Article 47 can (cf Case C-176/12, Association de médiation sociale (AMS)).

33  As further support to consumer protection it is notable that the Court takes a restrained attitude to challenges concerning the validity of EU directives. Take for example the EU legislature’s competence to introduce legislation based on the internal market provision (formerly Art. 100a EC Treaty, now Art. 114 TFEU). This competence exists if there is a direct effect on the functioning of the internal market or a significant distortion of competition or a likely emergence of obstacles. In practice, this is a low threshold (Weatherill, Contract Law of the Internal Market 37). The Tobacco Advertising cases show that there are instances in which the European legislator unjustifiable seeks to present legislation as internal market measures (see Case C-376/98, Tobacco Advertising I; and Case C-380/03, Tobacco Advertising II). Nonetheless, other examples are rare.

Select Bibliography

• A Alemanno and A-L Sibony, Nudge and the Law. A European Perspective (Hart Publishing 2015).

• A Beka, The Active Role of Courts in Consumer Litigation (Intersentia 2018).

• H Eindenmüller, ‘What Can Be Wrong with an Option? An Optional Common European Sales Law as a Regulatory Tool’ (2013) 50 Common Market Law Review 69.

• F Gomez, ‘The Harmonization of Contract Law through European Rules: A Law and Economics Perspective’ InDret 2/2008, available at SSRN: <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1371515>.

• D Leczykiewicz, ‘Horizontal Effect of Fundamental Rights: In Search of Social Justice or Private Autonomy in EU Law?’ in U Bernitz, X Groussot, and F Schulyok (eds), General Principles of EU Law and European Private Law (Kluwer 2013) 174.

• J Luzak, ‘The ABC of Online Disclosure Duties: Towards a More Uniform Assessment of the Transparency of Consumer Information in Europe’ (2021).

• V Mak, Legal Pluralism in European Contract Law (OUP 2020).

• V Mak and J Luzak, ‘The Consumer Rights Directive’ in AS Hartkamp, and C Sieburgh (eds), De invloed van het Europese recht op het Nederlandse privaatrecht (Kluwer 2014) 67.

• R Michaels, ‘Of Islands and the Ocean: The Two Rationalities of European Private Law’ in R Brownsword, H-W Micklitz, L Niglia, and S Weatherill (eds), The Foundations of European Private Law (Hart Publishing 2011) 139.

• R Michaels, ‘Why We Have No Theory of European Private Law Pluralism’ in L Niglia (ed), Pluralism and European Private Law (Hart Publishing 2013) 139.

• H-W Micklitz, The Politics of Justice in European Private Law. Social Justice, Access Justice, Societal Justice (CUP 2018).

• H-W Micklitz, ‘The Visible Hand of European Regulatory Private Law—The Transformation of European Private Law from Autonomy to Functionalism in Competition and Regulation’ (2009) 28(1) Yearbook of European Law 3.

• H-W Micklitz and N Reich, ‘The Court and Sleeping Beauty: The Revival of the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (UCTD)’ (2014) 51 Common Market Law Review 771.

• I Ramsay, EU Consumer Law and Policy (3rd edn Hart Publishing 2012).

• N Reich, H-W Micklitz, P Rott, and K Tonner, European Consumer Law (Intersentia 2014).

• C Riefa, ‘The Reform of Electronic Consumer Contracts in Europe: Towards an Effective Legal Framework?’ (2009), vol. 14 no. 2 Lex Electronica 17.

• H Schulte-Nölke, ‘The Brave New World of EU Consumer Law – Without Consumers, or Even Without Law?’ (2015) 4 Journal of European Consumer and Market Law 135.

• JM Smits, ‘Plurality of Sources in European Private Law, or: How to Live with Legal Diversity?’ in R Brownsword, H-W Micklitz, L Niglia and S Weatherill (eds), The Foundations of European Private Law (Hart Publishing 2011) 323.

• Study Group on a European Civil Code and Research Group on EC Private Law (Acquis Group), C von Bar (eds), Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law. Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR). Full edition (Sellier 2009; OUP 2009).

• A Toffler, The Third Wave (Bantam Books 1980).

• A Tversky and D Kahneman, ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ (1974) 185 Science 1124.

• G Wagner, ‘The Economics of Harmonization: The Case of Contract Law’ (2002) 39 Common Market Law Review 995.

• S Weatherill, Contract Law of the Internal Market (Intersentia 2016).

• S Weatherill, EU Consumer Law and Policy (2nd edn Edward Elgar 2014).

• S Weatherill, Law and Values in the European Union (OUP 2016).

• H Unberath and A Jonhston, ‘The Double-Headed Approach of the ECJ Concerning Consumer Protection’ (2007) 44 Common Market Law Review 1237.

Select Documents

• Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (25 May 1999) [1999] OJ L171/12.

• Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (11 May 2005) [2005] OJ L149/22.

• Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I) (17 June 2008) [2008] OJ L177/6.

• Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on consumer rights, amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 85/577/EEC and Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (25 October 2011) [2011] OJ L304/64.

• Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, of the European Parliament and of the Council on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (12 December 2012) [2012] OJ L351/1.

• European Union, Results of the Fitness Check of consumer and marketing law and of the evaluation of the Consumer Rights Directive (29 May 2017) available at: https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/item-detail.cfm?item_id=59332.

• Directive (EU) 2019/771 of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods, amending Regulation (EU) 2017/2394 and Directive 2009/22/EC, and repealing Directive 1999/44/EC (20 May 2019) [2019] OJ L136/28.

• European Commission, ‘The Digital Services Act Package’ (accessed 24 February 2022) available at: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-package.

Select Cases

• Case C-120/78, Rewe-Zentral AG v Bundesmonopolverwaltung für Branntwein, 20 February 1979, ECLI:EU:C:1979:42.

• Case C-210/96, Gut Springenheide GmbH and Rudolf Tusky v Oberkreisdirektor des Kreises Steinfurt - Amt für Lebensmittelüberwachung, 16 July 1998, ECLI:EU:C:1998:369.

• Case C-464/01, Johann Gruber v Bay Wa AG, 20 January 2005, ECLI:EU:C:2005:32.

• Case C-415/11, Mohamed Aziz v Caixa d´Estalvis de Catalunya, Tarragona i Manresa (Catalunyacaixa), 14 March 2013, ECLI:EU:C:2013:164.

• Case C-26/13, Árpád Kásler and Hajnalka Káslerné Rábai v OTP Jelzálogbank Zrt, 30 April 2014, ECLI:EU:C:2014:282.

• Joined Cases C-482/13, C-484/13, C-485/13 and C-487/13, Unicaja Banco, SA v Hidalgo Rueda and ors, and Caixabank SA v Rueda Ledesma and ors, 21 January 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:21.

• Case C-8/14, BBVA SA v Peñalva López and ors, 29 October 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:731.

• Case C-421/14, Banco Primus SA v Gutiérrez García, 26 January 2017, ECLI:EU:C:2017:60.