The Green Paper identifies barriers to effective consumer redress in terms of access, effectiveness and affordability and presents various options to close the gaps identified.
The Green Paper identifies barriers to effective consumer redress in terms of access, effectiveness and affordability and presents various options to close the gaps identified. The options set out in the Green Paper seek to ensure that consumers who are victims of illegal commercial practices can get compensated for their losses, while avoiding unfounded claims.
The Commission cites as an example that UK banks are under investigation for having systematically imposed excessive charges on hundreds of thousands of consumers whose accounts became overdrawn.
The Green Paper focuses on collective redress as a tool that could help solve the problems that consumers face in obtaining redress for mass claims both in national and cross-border contexts. Several options are put forward for debate.
Ø no immediate action,
Ø co-operation between Member States extending national collective redress systems to consumers from other Member States without a collective redress mechanism,
Ø a mix of policy instruments to strengthen consumer redress,
Ø binding or non binding measures for a collective redress judicial procedure to exist in all Member States.
A combination of different elements from these options is also open to consideration.
Deadline for comments is 1 March 2009.
Press release
Link to Green Paper
© European Commission
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