Collective Redress: Going Around in Circles

27 November 2008
by eub2 -- last modified 27 November 2008

When things go wrong with a service or product in our mass production and consumption economies, a high number of consumers can easily be affected. It is not hard to imagine situations where several people would want to group their individual claims against the same trader into one single action, and benefit from a collective redress mechanism: consumers who have suffered skin infections due to the leather treatment of their armchairs, passengers who have missed their Christmas holidays because of a rogue tour operator, consumers wanting to act against their bank for illegal overcharges...

Today, the European Commission has published a Green Paper on Consumer Collective Redress. Even if, after a series of conferences, workshops and consultations, several paths of actions had already been identified, and given that Commissioner Kuneva agrees with the need to reinforce consumers' access to justice, the very slow and low profile approach of the document is particularly disappointing. While several Member States have moved or are moving towards different systems of collective redress, the Commission on its side lacks ambition and, instead of drawing conclusions from the previous consultation rounds, is just engaging in another consultation exercise, during which all parties will simply repeat their arguments.

The difficulties for consumers to access justice and the pros and cons of collective consumer redress have been well known for many years, and now it is time to take political responsibilities and make choices: in our view an EU Group Action procedure as a binding instrument is the only way to allow a number of consumers to bring a case together before the court to obtain compensation for a damage caused by the same trader.

"It seems the Commission is going round in circles, as the Green Paper lists four main options which can be combined in various ways and there is no proposal for a single concrete action.  On the other hand, as the work on collective redress for victims of anti-trust behaviours is already advanced, we should be building upon it rather than starting all over again!" stated Monique Goyens, BEUC Director General.

The European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC) was created in 1962 by the consumer organisations of Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany. After working together for a number of years, these organisations decided to create a European association, based in Brussels, right at the heart of Community policy. BEUC was a pioneer, one of the first lobbying organisations to set up base in the European capital in a bid to influence the decision-making process.

BEUC - The European Consumers' Organisation