Unfair Commercial Practices Directive
| European Union directive | |
| Title | Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) |
|---|---|
| Made by | European Parliament and Council |
| Made under | Art. 95 TEC |
| Journal reference | L149, pp. 22-39 |
| History | |
| Date made | 2005-05-11 |
| Came into force | 2005-06-11 |
| Implementation date | 2007-06-12 |
| Other legislation | |
| Amends | Directive 84/450/EEC, Directive 97/7/EC, Directive 98/27/EC, Directive 2002/65/EC, and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 |
| Current legislation | |
The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC regulates unfair business practices in EU law, 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).
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 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.
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 law regulating "...commercial practices which, although not harming consumers, may hurt competitors and business customers" (8th recital to the Directive).
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