Legal Literature

Unfair Contract Terms Directive, link Package Travel Directive, link Distance Selling Directive, link Doorstep Selling Directive, link Consumer Rights Directive, link Timeshare Directive, link Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, link

This article analyses how the consumer is defined in both EU legislation and EU cases, and how this definition in itself protects the consumer. The article briefly considers the landscape for consumer protection within the EU. It then examines the notion of consumer developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the cases regarding free movement. It then considers the definition of ‘consumer’ found in the various EU directives on consumer protection, followed by an analysis of the difference between the two conceptions of ‘consumer’.