Monday 17 February 2020

500 online businesses do not comply with consumer rights

Recently, the European Commission released the results of a screening (or ‘sweep’) of 481 retail e-shops (press release available here). The main finding was that more than 2/3 of the screened online businesses do not comply with EU consumer rights legislation (particularly the Consumer Rights Directive). This number means that consumers are not properly informed on their rights in 2 out of 3 shops.  

Article 6 of the Consumer Rights Directive establishes that in distance contracts consumers should be given a long list of information, including on the withdrawal right, on the legal guarantee and on the total price of the product. Furthermore – and most importantly -, this information must be given in a clear and comprehensible manner. However, according to the screening, more than 1/4 of the analyzed websites did not inform consumers about how to withdraw from a contract. This breaches Article 6(1)(h) of the Consumer Rights Directive. Furthermore, nearly 1/2 of the analyzed websites did not provide such information in a clear manner (particularly regarding the 14 days’ time limit). This breaches Article 6(1) of the Consumer Rights Directive. The failure to inform the consumer about the right to withdrawal is ‘punished’ by the Consumer Rights Directive with an extension of the period of withdrawal from 14 days to 14 days and 12 months (Article 10(1)).

The sweep also found a frequent breach of the pre-contractual duty to inform on the total price of the purchase. In fact, in over 1/5 of the consulted websites the price initially shown did not include additional charges such as delivery or postal charges. This breaches Article 6(1)(e) of the Consumer Rights Directive. Other findings show that over 1/3 of the analyzed businesses did not inform consumers about the 2-year legal guarantee to have a good repaired, replaced or reimbursed in case of a defect at the moment of delivery. This breaches Article 6(1)(l) of the Consumer Rights Directive.

The lack of adequate pre-contractual information is one of the biggest challenges faced by consumers, and one that the EU legislator has spent quite some time working on. Of course, one of the main problems of the information paradigm in EU consumer law is its lack of enforceability. Even though businesses often breach their duty to provide information in a clear way, it is (ironically) unclear what the legal and practical consequences for such a breach are. The Commission, however, promises an ‘in-depth investigation of the above-mentioned irregularities’ at national level and the subsequent request for traders to correct and improve the information they provide to consumers.