Brussels, 05/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The draft directive on consumers' rights against restrictive practices will not feature on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting, but is still very much alive, the Commission has assured. Planned legislation would make it easier for consumers to take those proven to have participated in a cartel to court to recover financial losses resulting from illegal price rises. The proposal was due to be discussed by the College of Commissioners on Wednesday, but a spokeswoman for Commission President José Manuel Barroso said that this will not happen. The draft directive “is not ready for adoption,” she said, adding that “more legal work needs to be done, and several things need to be changed”.
The proposal seeks to clarify consumer rights in taking cartels that have been found guilty of increasing the prices of their products or services to court. According to a recent version of the text, seen by EUROPE, the EC Treaty alone does not provide a sufficient direct legal basis to allow EU citizens to try to recover damages due through national courts. The Commission estimates that price setting and market sharing cost European consumers over €1 billion per year.
The Commission, and particularly, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, wants to strengthen consumers' ability to take cases to court. This would complement the dissuasive effect of the sanctions previously imposed directly by the Commission. Moreover, damages would give a direct boost to the economy. Since the publication of its Green Paper in 2005 and White Paper in 2008 on this issue, the Commission has sought to remove a number of obstacles which currently make such cases prohibitively expensive for most consumers. Parliament backed the White Paper with a resolution in March of this year, in which the legal affairs committee inter alia called on the Commission to “identify a legal basis for the proposed interventions into national proceedings for non-contractual damages and national procedural law”. The Commission hopes that the current proposal will do just that.
Some - particularly within industry and among its supporters - oppose the legislation. “We do not support the one-size-fits-all approach,” says employers' organisation BusinessEurope, in an open letter. “National legal traditions and specificities have to be respected,” it goes on. The Commission, however, says that there is no need to fear any “Americanisation” of European case law. The text seen by EUROPE, clearly states, “the proposed Directive does not include more radical, cost-intensive measures known in some non-EU jurisdictions (for instance, multiple damages (where damages can reach three times the losses incurred: Ed.), and opt-out class actions (where the plaintiff can present his/her claim on behalf of all the consumers of the product, whether they have agreed to this or not: Ed.)”. (C.D./transl.rt)