Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council concerning the application of Directive 2009/22/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on injunctions for the protection of consumers’ interests

Directive 98/27/EC of 19 May 1998 on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests introduced a Court or administrative procedure enabling consumer organisations and/or public authorities to seek an injunction to stop a trader's practice that infringes a number of EU rules on consumer protection in all Member States. Directive 98/27/EC has been amended several times. In the interest of clarity, this Directive has been codified by Directive 2009/22/EC, which is currently in force. Article 6(1) of the Directive provides for the adoption of a report on its application every three years. Initially planned for 2003, the first report was adopted in November 2008.

The first report concluded that the major benefit of the Directive on injunctions was the fact that it introduced a procedure enabling an entity to bring injunctions to protect the collective interest of consumers in each Member State. These procedures were successful for national infringements, but had a more limited impact on cross-border infringements. The main reasons mentioned by both the Member States and the interested parties to explain the small number of injunctions sought in another Member State were the cost, complexity and length of time involved in taking action in another Member State.

The Commission’s report also highlighted that the entry into force of Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 on cooperation between national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws (CPC Regulation) partially explained the limited recourse by public authorities to the injunctions procedure for cross-border infringements, as the mutual assistance mechanisms under the Regulation are less costly.

In March 2011, in order to prepare this second report, the Commission sent questionnaires on the application of the Directive to public authorities and consumer organisations. The Commission received 58 replies, 37 of which were from ministries or other public authorities of Member States and 21 from consumer organisations at national or European level.

In addition, the Commission commissioned an external study designed to collect further data on the application of the Directive and providing an overview of the impact of the Directive on consumers in nine Member States, namely Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. These Member States were chosen because, next to the injunction procedure, they have systems of compensatory collective redress which have been already running for a number of years.

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)635: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:635:FIN

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