The European Commission's Action Plan COM(2003) 68 final and the Green Paper on the Modernisation of the 1980 Rome Convention COM(2002) 654 final
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
“Certainty is so essential, that law cannot even be just without it”, Francis Bacon once observed in the good old times. In the context of the general 20th century's trend from formal to substantive justice, however, policy objectives such as distributive justice, democratic political governance, or effective transnational regulation increasingly came to the focus of private law legislation. The rise of “consumerism” in contract law is the paradigmatic example of this development, which – at least from a German perspective – was triggered mainly by European measures on the harmonisation of private laws. While all intellectual capacities were absorbed by “regulating contracts” in the light of the new principle of “contractual solidarity”, the basic need of a legal system for overall consistency as a prerequisite for the administration of justice (“treating like cases alike”) obviously got out of sight. The critique with regard to pointillism and eclecticism in the European approach to private law harmonisation (“piecemeal legislation”), which lead to the patchwork character of the acquis communautaire, is a common place today, even within the European Commission. However, the conclusion, that has to be drawn, is not formulated straight forward: As consistency goes, arbitrariness comes, an inconsistent law is a contradictio in adjecto.
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25 The reason fort he unavailability of market-insurance in case of guarantees or late cancellations due to a failure of informing the consumer properly about his rights is simply, that there are involved to many potential moral hazards on the side of the seller. An insurer offering a respective police, thus, would attract too many bad risks. See only Wehrt, Warranties, in: Bouckaert/De Geest (eds.), Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, Volume III., 2000, S. 179 ff.Google Scholar
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32 Art. 153 (1) EC-Treaty and Art. 38 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (OJ C 364/1 of 18. December 2000).Google Scholar
33 See Reich, , Bürgerrechte in der Europäischen Union, 1999, p. 266 f. (”passive Marktfreiheiten“) with extensive reference to the ECJ.Google Scholar
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35 Spindler, Herkunftslandprinzip und Kollisionsrecht - Binnenmarktintegration ohne Harmonisierung? Die Folgen der Richtlinie im elektronischen Geschäftsverkehr für das Kollisionsrecht, RabelsZ 2002, 633Google Scholar
36 Commission communication to the Council and Parliament concerning the European contract law, COM(2001) 398 final, (OJ C 255/1 of 13.9.2001): http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/fair_bus_pract/cont_law/cont_law_02_en.pdf; all comments and follow-up documents available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/fair_bus_pract/cont_law/index_en.htm Google Scholar
37 See only Grundmann/Stuyck (eds.), An Academic Green Paper on European Contract Law, (Kluwer) 2002; von Bar/Lando/Swann, Communication on European Contract Law: Joint Response of the Commission on European Contract Law and the Study Group on a European Civil Code, ERPL 2002, 182-248; Staudenmayer, The Commission Communication on European Contract Law and the Future Prospects, 51 International and Comparative Law Quarterly (2002), 673-688; Schlechtriem, Wandlungen des Schuldrechts in Europa – wozu und wohin, ZEuP 2002, 213 ff.; Kötz, Alte und neue Aufgaben der Rechtsvergleichung, JZ 2002, 257 ff.; Schwintowski, Auf dem Weg zu einem Europäischen Zivilgesetzbuch, JZ 2002, 205 ff.; Sonnenberger, Privatrecht und Internationales Privatrecht im künftigen Europa: Fragen und Perspektiven, Recht der Iinternationalen Wirtschaft (RIW) 2002, 489 ff.; Grundmann, Internationales Privatrecht als Verfassungsordnung, RIW 2002, 329 ff.; Ott/Schäfer, Die Vereinheitlichung des europäischen Vertragsrechts. Ökonomische Notwendigkeit oder akademisches Interesse, in: Ott/Schäfer (ed.), Vereinheitlichung und Diversität des Zivilrechts in transnationalen Wirtschaftsräumen, 2002, p. 203 ff.; Eidenmüller, Obligatorische versus optionales europäisches Vertragsgesetzbuch, in: Ott/Schäfer (ed.), Vereinheitlichung und Diversität des Zivilrechts in transnationalen Wirtschaftsräumen, 2002, p.237 ff.Google Scholar
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40 See Green Paper COM(2002) 654 final at 1.6Google Scholar
41 See the Executive Summary in COM(2001) 398 final.Google Scholar
42 See the summary of the consultation process in the Action Plan COM(2003) 68 final, Part 3Google Scholar
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46 See Action Plan COM(2003) 68 final, Executive Summary, Paragraph 1.Google Scholar
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55 Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, OJ L 012, 16/01/2001 p. 1–23, available at http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=32001R0044&model=guichett Google Scholar
56 See again Grundmann, Europäisches Schuldvertragsrecht, 1999.Google Scholar
57 There are, of course, general mandatory protection rules like § 138 BGB, which protect any party, including, but not limited to consumers: an example is the protection of private guarantors (see BVerfG, NJW 1994, 36), which are not protected by Community measures, if the credit agreement secured by the guarantee is not a consumer contract: see ECJ Case C-45/96 – Dietzinger, ECR 1998 I-1199.Google Scholar
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59 Rauscher, Gran Carnaria - Isle of Man - Was kommt danach? Plädoyer für einen europäischen Ordre Public, Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht (EuZW) 1996, 650 – 653; BGHZ 135, 124 = NJW 1997, 1697: no right to revocation under HWiG (legislation transposing Directive 85/577/EEC on contracts concluded away from business premises into German law) in case of a contract on a time-share in a flat located in Spain, concluded between a German tourist and a business domiciled on the Isle of Man on ocassion of a promotion event in the respective holiday resort, to which the tourist was invited while walking around in the streets of the Spanish city.Google Scholar
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61 See Green Paper at 3.1.1.1.Google Scholar
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63 Accessible at http://www.drt.ucl.ac.be/gedip.Google Scholar
64 BGHZ 135, 124 ff.Google Scholar
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71 BGHZ 135, 124Google Scholar
72 BGHZ 135, 124Google Scholar
73 BGHZ 123, 124Google Scholar
74 See Magnus, , in: Staudinger (2002), Art. 29 EGBGB N 45 ff.; Heiss, in: Czernich/Heiss, EVÜ, 1999, Art. 5 N 14 ff.Google Scholar
75 See e.g. the terms and conditions of www.Amazon.com for E-Books, where only limited rights of use (personalised on screen reading, making a certain amount of hard copies) are transferred to the “buyer”, which is technically ensured by a personally registered software (e.g. Acrobat E-Book Reader).Google Scholar
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78 See Reich, , Bürgerrechte in der EU, 1999, p. 262: ”Unter Verbraucher wird … jeder Unionsbürger verstanden, der auf dem Binnenmarkt für Waren- und Dienstleistungen als Nachfrager auftritt und damit seine persönlichen Bedarfe befriedigen will.“Google Scholar
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80 See Art. 1(1) Directive 85/577/EEC on contracts concluded away from business premises, see http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/door_sell/index_en.htm: “contracts under which a trader supplies goods or services to a consumer”; Art. 1(2) c) Consumer Credit Directive (87/102/EEC) as amended, see the overview on the issue including the proposol for reform at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/fina_serv/cons_directive/index_en.htm: “‘credit agreement’ means an agreement whereby a creditor grants or promises to grant to a consumer a credit” (= Art. 2(c) of the reform proposal); Art. 2(1) Distance Selling Directive (97/7/EC), see http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/dist_sell/index_en.htm: “‘distance contract’ means any contract concerning goods or services concluded between a supplier and a consumer under an organized distance sales or service-provision scheme run by the supplier”; Art. 1(1) Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC), see http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/unf_cont_terms/index_en.htm: “contracts concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer”; Art. 2(1) in connection with Art. 1(2) a) - c) of the Consumer Sales Directive (1999/44/EC), see http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31999L0044&model=guichett: “seller must deliver goods to the consumer”.Google Scholar
81 The consideration offered by the consumer must – of course – not be a adequate. However, there is no need for contractual consumer protection in case of a gratuitous promise of a business. The scope of this concept is best described by the term “entgeltliche Leistung” (something like: performance in exchange for a (i.e. any) consideration) used in section 312(1) German Civil Code (the “BGB”) with regard to door-step selling. The problem of a contract without consideration was addressed as well in ECJ Case C-45/96 – Dietzinger, ECR 1998, I-1199, where the ECJ ruled that the Door-Step-Selling Directive 85/577/EEC is applicable to a guarantee, although the guarantor receives no consideration himself, since the guarantee is connected to the credit agreement and the creditor provides a service (credit) to a third party (the debtor). However, according to the ECJ the credit agreement itself must be a consumer credit in order for the Directive being applicable to the guarantee. See as well BGH, NJW 1998, 2356.Google Scholar
82 All three problems are implicitly adressed by the solutions proposed by the Grenn Paper at 3.2.7.3Google Scholar
83 See Reich/Nordhausen, Verbraucher und Recht im elektronischen Geschäftsverkehr, 2000, which propose to generally apply the acquis of the European consumer protection directives as the “mandatory law of the forum” instead of the law of the consumers’ home-state. See as well Grundmann, Binnenmarktkollisionsrecht - vom klassischen IPR zur Integrationsordnung, RabelsZ 69 (2000) 457-477, proposing the application of the business’ home-state law in combination with a direct application of the acquis, where necessary.Google Scholar
84 Art. 5 Rome Convention is interpreted by many authors in the light of the solution of Art. 2 a) CISG (see hereto Ferrari, in: Schlechtriem (ed.), CISG-Kommentar, 3rd ed. 2000, Art 2 N. 15 ff.), which interpretation builds on the report of Guliano/Lagarde (OJ C 282 of 31/10/1980 S. 1-50): see Magnus, in: Staudinger (2002), Art. 29 EGBGB N. 38; Heiss, in: Czernich/Heiss, EVÜ, Art. 5 N. 8; Glatt, Internetverträge, 2002, p. 105–109; Foss/Bygrave, International Consumer Purchases Trough the Internet, International Journal of Law and IT 2000 8(99). However, this interpretation is contested and not yet supported by precedence.Google Scholar
85 See e.g. Fallenböck, , Internet und internationales Privatrecht, 2001, at 61 (commenting on the solution of the UCITA), and 107; see as well Nimmer, Through the Looking Glass: What Courts and UCITA Say About the Scope of Contract Law in the Information Age, 38 Duq. L. Rev. (2000) 255, 262 ff.; Art. 109 b) UCITA 2002 reads as follows: (1) An access contract or a contract providing for electronic delivery of a copy is governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the licensor was located when the agreement was entered into. (2) A consumer contract that requires delivery of a copy on a tangible medium is governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the copy is or should have been delivered to the consumer.Google Scholar
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87 See only Heiss, , RabelsZ 2001, 634 ff., 650: ”Wo Art. 5 EVÜ greift, will er [der Unternehmer, GPC] überhaupt keine Rechtswahl, zumal sie ihn nur belasten kann.“ (Where Art. 5 is applicable, the business does not want a choice of law, since it will result to the detriment of the business)Google Scholar
88 After the accession of the 10 candidate states in 2004.Google Scholar
89 For the use of that term see generally Beck, Gegengifte – Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit, 1988; in the context of private law legislation see only Safferling, supra note 58.Google Scholar
90 I.e. an illusion or fabrication of the mind or fancy. This term was used by Christian Joerges at the May 2002 Conference of SECOLA in London, in this context indicating that the “active consumer” is a fabrication of the Commission in order to annex competencies in consumer protection law.Google Scholar
91 According to a survey of the European Mail Order and Distance Selling Trade Association (EMOTA) of 30.09.2002 (www.emota-aevpc.org/) this is true even for distance selling: ”Sales to consumers in other states directly across borders are still insignificant (no more than 3%) as a part of total sales due to existing barriers. Companies prefer to work together with or acquire a local firm in order to profit from their knowledge of the local market, consumer attitude and interpretation of local legislation (”think international, act local“).“Google Scholar
92 It has to be taken into account, that a transformation of the Consumer Sales Directive (1999/44/EC) limited to consumer contracts would have led to an unbearable fragmentation of the German civil law codification “BGB”. Therefore, the German legislator decided to reform the general sales contract provisions in the BGB, which apply as well to consumer-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions. Thus the active consumer contracts, the regulation of which the Directive is heading for (see considerations 2-5 of the Directive), account for far less then one per cent of all covered transactions.Google Scholar
94 See Roth, , Europäischer Verbraucherschutz und BGB, Juristenzeitung 2001, 475, at 477 ff.Google Scholar
95 See Raz, J., The Rule of Law and ist virtue, 93 Law Quarterly Review (1977) 195-202.Google Scholar
96 See von Bar/Lando/Swann, Communication on European Contract Law: Joint Response of the Commission on European Contract Law and the Study Group on a European Civil Code, ERPL 2002, 182, 230 (paragraph 84).Google Scholar
97 See Action Plan COM(2003) 68 final, Paragraph 14.Google Scholar
98 Refering to the German saying: “To tackle the Devil with Beelzebub” (the prince of the devils)Google Scholar
99 The Green Paper in ist introduction simply states: ”The present document does not intend to examine the relationship between a possible future instrument and the Internal Market rules. For the Commission it is clear, however, that such an instrument should leave intact the principles of the Internal Market laid down in the Treaty or in secondary legislation.“Google Scholar
100 In the Isle-of-Man Case decided by the FCJ (BGHZ 135, 124), for instance, the lower Courts had not even tried to solve the case under the laws of the Isle-of-Man. The whole argument was just about the applicability of the German protection rules. Thus, the FCJ in its decission simply presumed, that the contract would be enforceable under the law of the Isle-of-Man (at II 2 and 3).Google Scholar
101 For a very good analysis and a sceptical result with regard to the prerequisites of a competition in both mandatory as well as dispositive private law see Kieninger, Wettbewerb der Privatrechtsordnungen im Europäischen Binnenmarkt, 2002 Google Scholar
102 See for the following ideas Grundmann (supra note 13), especially in RIW 2002.Google Scholar
103 See Grundmann, Europäisches Verbrauchervertragsrecht im Spiegel der ökonomischen Theorie – Vertragsinformationsrecht im Binnenmarkt, in: Ott/Schäfer (ed.), Vereinheitlichung und Diversität des Zivilrechts in transnationalen Wirtschaftsräumen, 2002, 284 ff.Google Scholar
104 See for potential inverse effects of consumer protection only: Joerges, Verbraucherschutz als Rechtsproblem, 1981, p. 127; Schäfer, in: Grundmann (ed.), Systembildung und Systemlücken in Kerngebieten des Europäischen Privatrechts, 2000, p. 559 ff.Google Scholar
105 See Ferrari, in: Schlechtriem (ed.), CISG-Kommentar, 3rd ed. 2000, Art 2 N. 15 ff.Google Scholar
106 Which interpretation builds on the report of Guliano/Lagarde (OJ C 282 of 31/10/1980 S. 1-50): see Magnus, in: Staudinger (2002), Art. 29 EGBGB N. 38; Heiss, in: Czernich/Heiss, EVÜ, Art. 5 N. 8; Glatt, Internetverträge, 2002, p. 105–109; Foss/Bygrave, International Consumer Purchases Trough the Internet, International Journal of Law and IT 2000 8(99), all with further references.Google Scholar
107 See Spindler/Börner (eds.), E-Commerce Recht in Europa und den USA, 2003, at 281.Google Scholar
108 An exception may be a characteristic performance, which usually can be used for private use only, or a contract, where the volume or value usually is only demanded by businesses: see Ferrari, in: Schlechtriem (ed.), CISG-Kommentar, 3rd ed. 2000, Art 2 N. 17 f.; However, the majority of all products and services can be used for private and/or professional use. Thus, there should be a clear distinction in advance, based on the external circumstances or the representations of the parties.Google Scholar
109 See www.dell.co.uk Google Scholar
110 See the detailed analysis at Calliess, Nach der Schuldrechtsreform: Perspektiven des Verbrauchervertragsrechts, Archiv für die Civilistische Praxis (AcP) 203 (2003), forthcoming.Google Scholar
111 See supra para. 38 with note 85Google Scholar