Fairness of Contract Terms in European and Serbian Law

Pursuant to its 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement governing the process of EU integration Serbia is obliged to align its consumer protection standards with those of the EU. As part of this process in 2010 it adopted a new Consumer Protection Act that, inter alia, implements the Unfair Contract Terms Directive. This article compares the Serbian and European fairness regimes laid down in the tests of fairness, highlighting the advantages of the Serbian test. It argues that the Serbian test is preferable particularly because it resolves the saga on the relation between substantive and procedural fairness, and it allows the application of the test during performance of the contract. As a final note the paper highlights the potential dangers that may undermine the positive effects of the test and leave consumers unprotected

Consumer ADR in Hungary

This paper discusses the system of ADR in Hungary. It considers whether the system provides a high level of consumer protection and consumer access to justice, looking for the most interesting and important elements of the system while highlighting areas that need improvement. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to develop a detailed set of suggestions for improvement, given the short nature of the paper

Social justice in EU financial consumer law

This paper considers how social justice influences EU financial consumer law. It provides a new way of looking at social justice in consumer law by showing that equality of status based social justice has increasingly come to the fore in modern EU financial consumer law. This emergent and complex set of private and regulatory rules on credit, insurance, investment and payment products has responded to the consequences of inequality between financial firms and consumers by engaging in product and rights regulation that balances the parties’ rights and duties and protects consumers from the consequences of status-based inequality. Looking forward the paper recommends that this social justice approach must be made transparent and become an express part of EU law and policy, both in order to raise consumer trust in the internal market and to more clearly set the future law and policy agenda

Mortgage Credit in Hungary

This article deals with the Hungarian implementation of Directive 2014/17/EU on mortgage credit agreements, focusing in particular on the extent to which it raises the level of consumer protection

Study to Support the Fitness Check of EU Consumer Law; Country Report Hungary in Study for the Fitness Check of EU Consumer and Marketing Law, Final report Part 3-Country reporting (2017)

Detailed report on the implementation and practical application of Directive 1999/13/EC, Directive 98/6/EC, Directive 1999/44/EC, Directive 2009/22/EC, Directive 2006/114/EC and Directive 2005/29/EC in Hungary. See http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/item-detail.cfm?item_id=5933

Hungary-Report in State of collective redress in the EU in the context of the implementation of the Commission Recommendation

Report on the implementation of a European Commission Recommendation of 11 June 2013 on collective redress in Hungary

Consumer Access to Justice: The Role of the ADR Directive and the Member States

This article takes it to be vital to decide whether the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Directive provides a version of access to justice that is suitably sensitive to the consumer market. The Directive is deficient in this regard, at least to the extent that it does not make ADR processes mandatory or binding for businesses. Nevertheless, if Member States choose mandatory and binding processes, this may be compatible with the fundamental right to judicial protection, if emphasis is placed on efficiency benefits. If they choose voluntary processes/non-binding decisions, success will depend partly on incentives, sanctions, and monitoring at EU and Member State levels

The Impact of EU Norms and Policies on Consumer Protection Enforcement in Serbia

Pursuant to its 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement governing the process of EU integration, Serbia is obliged to align its consumer protection standards (including those related to enforcement) with those of the EU. This article considers the overall approach to enforcement of consumer law in Serbia, focussing in particular on the extent to which EU enforcement principles have been successfully exported to Serbia and whether the goals of EU consumer policy have been achieved. It argues that the incorporation of EU norms has brought fundamental changes to Serbian enforcement mechanisms at a formal level, such as in relation to mediation processes as well as the introduction of injunctions for the protection of collective consumer interests. In practice, however, the impact of this incorporation is quite limited. A number of factors that restrict the practical effectiveness of the mediation processes and injunctions required by EU law are explored in the article, including weak sanctions, excessive reliance on poorly resourced consumer organizations, absence of a business culture of compliance or a sophisticated and determined consumer protection enforcement culture sufficiently grounded in expertise, as well as an overarching political, legislative, and institutional instability. These factors also undermine the general aim of EU policy to achieve effective consumer protection enforcement in the Serbian context

Achieving Safety and Affordability in the UK Payday Loans Market

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, financial regulation and supervision has been significantly reformed in the UK. As an important part of this reform, consumer credit, including payday loans, has been transferred to the new conduct of business regulator and supervisor, the Financial Conduct Authority. This paper considers the key rules on responsible lending and product regulation, introduced to protect the payday loans consumers. It shows that the responsible lending regime now reduces the risk that payday loans will be given to those who cannot afford the high costs involved, although responsible lending will only be fully effective if credit reference agencies hold up-to-date and correct information. Product regulation, in the form of a rollover restriction and a price cap, should make payday loans cheaper and safer for those who do use them, although, for the price cap to be most effective, steps must be taken to enhance price competition in the space below the cap. Finally, it is shown that firms are now subject to interventionist, rigorous, and consumer-centric supervision, which seems to stand a good chance of securing compliance with the new rules