The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC
[Official Journal of the European Union, L149/22 – L149/39, 11 June 2005] regulates
unfair business practices
Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers, and are prohibited by law in many countries. In the European Union, each member state must reg ...
in
EU law
European Union law is a system of rules operating within the member states of the European Union (EU). Since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community following World War II, the EU has developed the aim to "promote peace, its val ...
, as part of
European consumer law. It requires corresponding laws to be passed that incorporate it into each member state's legal system.
The Directive is concerned mainly with the "substantive" law (meaning in this context the standards of behaviour required of traders). To some extent it leaves to member states the choice of appropriate domestic enforcement procedures and penalties for non-compliance (Articles 11 to 13 of the Directive).
Contents
Recitals
The recitals state the objective of the Directive to reduce barriers to free trade in the EU while simultaneously ensuring a high level of consumer protection. At issue was the fact that the consumer protection laws are different among the various member states (see Article 1 of the Directive and the recitals to it). The Directive is supposed to reduce these differences while establishing a required minimum level of consumer protection across all member states. This is expected to benefit both business and consumers, as businesses receive a more standardised legal system under which to operate and consumers receive a sufficient and standardised level of protection, regardless of where they choose to make purchases.
The Directive is designed to achieve what is called "maximum harmonisation" of business-to-consumer fair trade. The idea of "maximum harmonisation" is that it requires
member states
A member state is a state that is a member of an international organization or of a federation or confederation.
Since the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) include some members that are not sovereign states ...
of the European Union to apply the standards set out in European legislation and prohibits those states from applying lower or higher standards. In other words, the Directive tells European countries to give consumers no more and no less than the level of protection set out in the Directive. That maximum harmonisation is not yet in force.
Chapter 1
The Directive starts with a general prohibition on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices (Articles 3(1) and 5(1)) and then goes into progressively greater detail defining what that means.
Article 3(2) states the Directive is expressly "without prejudice to contract law and, in particular, to the rules on the validity, formation or effect of a contract" (see also the 9th recital to the Directive). It does not seek to harmonise
unfair competition
Unfair may refer to:
* Double Taz and Double LeBron James in multiverses ''fair''; unfairness or injustice
* ''Unfair'' (drama), Japanese television series
* '' Unfair: The Movie''
* Unfair (song), a song by South Korean boy group EXO