On 26 January 2018, the European Commission published the second General Report of the study on procedural law undertaken by the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg. This strand of the study concerned the effect of divergences in national procedural laws on the equivalence and effectiveness of the procedural protection of consumers under EU consumer law.
The evaluation study, commissioned by the European Commission, is the most comprehensive, empirically-driven comparative investigation of national civil procedure thus far undertaken in Europe. It uses an extensive dataset comprising hundreds of interviews and responses to a multi-language online survey, examines the rules of civil procedure in all EU Member States, and identifies their impact on mutual trust (first strand of the study) and on the protection of consumers under EU consumer law (second strand). The two General Reports will be of interest for all practitioners, academics and policymakers with a focus on judicial cooperation, civil justice and consumer protection.
The General Report on procedural consumer protection, edited by Prof. Burkhard Hess, which includes five chapters, can be accessed and downloaded free of charge at this URL: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/document.cfm?action=display&doc_id=49503.
It has been published alongside information on the European Commission’s New Deal for Consumers.
The General Report of the first strand of the study – concerning the effect of divergences in national procedural laws on mutual trust and the free circulation of judgments – was published by the European Commission in September 2017.
