Article contents
The Diversity of the EU Approach to Law Enforcement—Towards a Coherent Model Inspired by a Law and Economics Approach
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
Abstract
Traditionally in the division of labor between the European level and the Member States it was, roughly, the European legislature that set the norms and the Member States that took care of enforcing these norms. In various policy areas, an implementation deficit has been observed, which is said to be partly due to the Member States facing difficulties with the choice of procedural options. For that reason, among others, the European legislature increasingly prescribes the enforcement approach to the Member States to back up national legislation that implements European law. This Article examines the incoherence of the EU's approach to law enforcement in the areas of consumer, competition, environmental, and insider trading laws. After setting out the EU's legal competences with a view to law enforcement, the rather diverse picture—mixes—of private, administrative, and criminal law enforcement in the four areas will be illustrated. The authors then ask the question of whether this divergence can be explained by an economic reasoning with respect to law enforcement. The analysis, however, identifies substantial differences between an ideal enforcement mix and the current enforcement approaches used in EU law. Moreover, it is suggested that the economic approach could be employed to provide more consistency to the use of enforcement tools in EU law.
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References
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139 Recital 5 of Directive 2014/57/EU.Google Scholar
140 Directive 2014/57/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 16, 2014 on criminal sanctions for market abuse (Market Abuse Directive).Google Scholar
141 Thus, it cannot sufficiently consider specific nuances or details, such as proposals towards collective action (aiming at strengthening private enforcement) in some domains. Recall that the recommendation on collective redress has a horizontal character, but that it is nonbinding.Google Scholar
142 Obviously, it may be possible to have a much more nuanced approach, addressing, for example, whether enforcement either via a civil court or via an ADR body would be more indicated or, for example, addressing group litigation/collective action in detail. That would, however, for the purposes of this study go much too far and is moreover not needed immediately because we merely want to use our general framework to broadly test some of the differences in the European approach in law enforcement that we identified in the previous paper. For a more refined approach, equally incorporating group litigation, ADR and self-regulation see Weber, Franziska, The Law and Economics of Enforcing European Consumer Law - A Comparative Analysis of Package Travel and Misleading Advertising (2014).Google Scholar
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160 Part of the analysis of public law enforcement may likewise be true for the strengths and weaknesses of group litigation that could not be dealt with in detail in the context of this paper.Google Scholar
161 See Shavell, Steven, The Social Versus the Private Incentive to Bring Suit in a Costly Legal System, 11 J. Legal Stud. 333 (1982). To some extent, low cost dispute resolution bodies within the context of private law enforcement, like ADR or mediation, might mitigate the problem.Google Scholar
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163 A public enforcer has a lower cost of information discovery because it can use the power of the state—such as the threat of jail, the power of the police to conduct searches and seizures of evidence, clandestine electronic surveillance, and under-cover agents; see Segal, Ilya R. & Whinston, Michael D., Public Vs. Private Enforcement of Antitrust Law: A Survey, Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 335, 6 (2006). (referring to antitrust cases).Google Scholar
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176 There is a strong objection to the introduction of punitive damages in Europe as set out before. Injunctive relief as granted by private bodies may yield similar results in terms of deterrence, see Faure, Michael, Anthony Ogus & Niels Philipsen, Curbing Consumer Financial Losses: The Economics of Regulatory Enforcement, 31(2) Law & Pol'y 161, 176 (2009).Google Scholar
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192 The European country in which this is most developed seems to be Norway: Johnsen, John T., Enforcement of Civil Claims in Criminal Litigation: The Norwegian Example, in Enforcement and Enforceability—Tradition and Reform 313–326 (Remco van Rhee & Alan Uzelaceds, 2010); for Germany see §§ 403–406d Strafprozessordnung (Act on Criminal Procedure, StPO). Similar provisions exist also in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, see Ogus, Anthony, Michael Faure, and Niels Philipsen, Best Practices for Consumer Policy: Report on the Effectiveness of Enforcement Regimes, in Report prepared for the UK Department of Trade and Industry and OECD 37 (2006).Google Scholar
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206 This has inter alia strongly been argued by Anthony Ogus & Carolyn Abbot, Sanctions for Pollution: Do We Have the Right Regime?, 13 J. Envtl. L. 283 (2002).Google Scholar
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209 Standard literature: Polinsky & Shavell, supra note 151—public enforcement is optimal when it is too costly for the individual to identify the wrongdoer.Google Scholar
210 This refers to persons providing “tips”, meaning, relevant information which may affect stock prices. Cox, James D., Insider Trading and Contracting: A critical response to the “Chicago School”, Duke L. J. 628, 658 (1986) sees scope for economies of scale and benefits of public enforcement.Google Scholar
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