Legal Literature

Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Chapter 1, Article 2, (a)

The article approaches form a comparative law perspective the notion of "consumer" as well as the courses of action that may be taken by consumer associations in several jurisdictions.

Consumer protection legislation protects solely consumers as individual persons and not entities, which are protected under commercial law, competition law and civil law.

Despite the incomplete and unclear legislative framework and the lack of proper court decisions in this matter, consumer associations may invoke on behalf of individual consumers the legal provisions regarding consumer protection. While consumer associations may file judicial actions in order to hold traders liable for the breach of consumer protection legislation,  the lack of explicit procedural and substantial provisions does not facilitate their mission.

The extraprofessional purpose of acquiring/using the goods or the services is an essential criteria in order to differentiate consumers protected under consumer protection law, from professionals.  The author also argues that a mixed purpose - both professional and personal - for acquiring/using the goods or the service does not exclude, in principle, the possibility of an individual to be protected under consumer law, provided that he/she can prove the existence, at the execution of the contract, of some extraprofessional purpose which justifies the qualification as "protected consumer".