Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: Implementation and Application Challenges in the Lithuanian Legal System Cover Image

Nesąžiningos komercinės veiklos direktyva: perkėlimo ir taikymo iššūkiai Lietuvos teisinėje sistemoje
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: Implementation and Application Challenges in the Lithuanian Legal System

Author(s): Ieva Navickaitė-Sakalauskienė
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Mykolas Romeris University
Keywords: EU Consumer Law; Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD); Law on Prohibition of Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices of the Republic of Lithuania; implementation problems; national case law

Summary/Abstract: The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) seeks to regulate the fairness of business-to-consumer trading practices through reference to a “high level of consumer protection.” As in Lithuania there was no special national legislation, prohibiting unfair commercial practices, infringing economic interests of consumers, an absolutely new regime was brought by the UCPD into the national legal system. The aim of this article is to critically examine the implementation of the UCPD in the Republic of Lithuania, together with highlighting its principal application problems. In order to understand how the UCPD “landed” into the national legal system, in the first part of the article a short overview of regulation available before the transposition of the Directive is provided. The second part of the article deals with analysis of national rules, transposing UCPD. In the third part of the article, relevant case law is analyzed. In conclusion the author notes that Lithuania is not an exception and like other member states faced difficulties when transposing UCPD into the national legal system. Although the growing number of national case law in this field is the best evidence that UCPD and the implementing act are striking developments, influencing the national consumer law, however, the way from core application uncertainties still needs to be found.

  • Issue Year: 4/2012
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 1109-1123
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: English