Suchergebnisse

This paper1 considers how social justice influences EU financial consumer law. It provides a new way of looking at social justice in consumer law by showing that equality of status based social justice has increasingly come to the fore in modern EU financial consumer law. This emergent and complex set of private and regulatory rules on credit, insurance, investment and payment products has responded to the consequences of inequality between financial firms and consumers by engaging in product and rights regulation that balances the parties' rights and duties and protects consumers from the consequences of status-based inequality. Looking forward the paper recommends that this social justice approach must be made transparent and become an express part of EU law and policy, both in order to raise consumer trust in the internal market and to more clearly set the future law and policy agenda.

Following the structure defined in the Review of the Consumer Acquis of 2004, the Commission adopted a Green Paper on 8 February 2007 and launched a consultation on some key issues on the future developments of EC consumer law. The Review of the Consumer Acquis (i.e. eight consumer directives) should, accordingly, focus on the level of harmonization of the Consumer Acquis and the relevant instruments. There seems to be a trend the Commission towards the need to shift from minimum to maximum harmonization, and the adoption of a horizontal instrument containing a set of "Principles" of European Consumer Contract Law. In this working paper I briefly discuss some ideas on the governance of EC Consumer Law, i.e. how responsibility for consumer protection is shared between the European Union and its member states, the actors involved in the field (particularly the national courts) and the (formal and informal) instruments of consumer protection. These questions are intimately interlinked, and the answers are of deep significance as they will map the future of European consumer protection policy.

Exploring the relationship between fundamental rights and consumer law in the EU, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the joint implications of the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It examines the potential tensions that may emerge between consumer protection objectives and economic, market-oriented goals.

This paper considers how social justice influences EU financial consumer law. It provides a new way of looking at social justice in consumer law by showing that equality of status based social justice has increasingly come to the fore in modern EU financial consumer law. This emergent and complex set of private and regulatory rules on credit, insurance, investment and payment products has responded to the consequences of inequality between financial firms and consumers by engaging in product and rights regulation that balances the parties' rights and duties and protects consumers from the consequences of status-based inequality. Looking forward the paper recommends that this social justice approach must be made transparent and become an express part of EU law and policy, both in order to raise consumer trust in the internal market and to more clearly set the future law and policy agenda.