Acţiunile în reprezentarea intereselor colective ale consumatorilor în reglementarea naţională în România – un mijloc procedural cu adevărat eficient pentru protecţia intereselor colective ale consumatorilor?
Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers in National Regulation in Romania – a Truly Effective Procedural Mean for the Protection of Collective Interests of Consumer?

Summary/Abstract: Within the European Union, it has been asserted as a matter of principle that consumer confidence in the internal market diminishes in the absence of effective mechanisms to put an end to unlawful practices and to secure redress for the harm suffered by consumers. The lack of effective means for ensuring the enforcement of Union law in the matter of consumer protection may also distort fair competition between traders who disregard the law and those who comply with it, whether operating domestically or across borders. With the consistently stated aim of further discouraging illegal practices by professionals and reducing the harm caused to consumers by such practices, and, additionally, in the context of an increasingly globalized and digitalized market, it has become necessary to strengthen the procedural mechanisms for the protection of collective interests of consumer, established by Directives 98/27/EC and 2009/22/EC, in order to encompass not only injunctive relief but also redress measures for harmed consumers. This article aims to provide an overview, without claiming to be exhaustive, of the main harmonization standards established by Directive (EU) 2020/1828 regarding the procedural rules applicable to the legal mechanism of representative actions for the protection of collective interests of consumer as a form of collective actions and further examines the transposition of these standards into Romanian law through the provisions of Law No. 414/2023, highlighting certain challenges and questions concerning the practical effectiveness of the procedural mechanism of representative actions, particularly those actions for redress measures.

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