The Treaty on the European Union for the first time provided an explicit legal basis for EU intervention and initiatives aimed at protecting consumer health and safety and promoting consumers' interests. EU Consumer Law charts the development of consumer protection law and policy in the context of legislation and case law, and provides a uniquely comprehensive analysis of all EU legislative measures affecting consumers. The book covers core areas in consumer protection such as product liability, labelling and consumer contracts, in addition to other areas of consumer interest such as pharmaceuticals, financial services and dangerous substances, insofar as they relate specifically to consumer issues. It derives from a section in the looseleaf Law of the EU (Vaughan & Robertson, eds), and is made available here for the benefit of those who don't subscribe to the looseleaf.

The book examines Directive 93/13 on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts and its implementation with a twofold aim: first, to understand the extent to which the Directive has influenced and will influence fundamental notions and principles of contract law in the domestic legal systems of the Member States; second, it examines the extent to which the domestic legal traditions of the Member States have influenced the process of drafting of the Directive and, more importantly, will affect the way that the Directive is interpreted and applied in national courts. The focus is mainly on English law (including the 2005 Unfair Terms in Contracts Bill) and on Italian law, but frequent references are made to the French and the German systems. At the same time, the book has a broader, more 'European' concern, in that it aims to distill from the existing Community acquis and from the history and rationale of Directive 93/13 notions and concepts that could guide its interpretation. It is well known that Community law uses terminology which is peculiar to it, and that legal concepts do not necessarily have the same meaning in EC law and in the law of the various Member States: every provision of Community law must be placed in its context and interpreted in the light of its own objectives and rationale, and of the objectives and rationale of Community law as a whole. In this respect, this book aims to identify the contours and features of the emerging European legal tradition, and to assess the impact that this may have on the domestic traditions.

This book, published in two volumes, is based on the contributions made to the W.G. Hart Workshop 2003. It contains more than forty contributions by leading experts seeking to assess the state of development of EU law some fifty years after the establishment of the Communities and contribute to the current debate on the European Constitution. The first volume concentrates on the theme of European Constitutionalism and analyzes the proposed Constitution dealing, among others, with the division of competence between the EU and the Member States, Community legislation, the role of the national parliaments, democracy in the EU, and the Court of Justice. The second volume focuses on challenges in the field of the internal market and external relations, looking at diverse areas of European law, including free movement, competition law and merger control, public procurement, consumer law, enlargement, WTO, third country nationals, and sex equality. Authors include: Tony Arnull, George Bermann

This book, published in two volumes, is based on the contributions made to the W.G. Hart Workshop 2003. It contains more than forty contributions by leading experts seeking to assess the state of development of EU law some fifty years after the establishment of the Communities and contribute to the current debate on the European Constitution. The first volume concentrates on the theme of European Constitutionalism and analyzes the proposed Constitution dealing, among others, with the division of competence between the EU and the Member States, Community legislation, the role of the national parliaments, democracy in the EU, and the Court of Justice. The second volume focuses on challenges in the field of the internal market and external relations, looking at diverse areas of European law, including free movement, competition law and merger control, public procurement, consumer law, enlargement, WTO, third country nationals, and sex equality. Authors include: Tony Arnull, George Bermann

Damages Claims for the Infringement of Competition Law addresses the current state of the law in the EU on damages claims for the infringement of EU competition law by combining a theoretical with a practical perspective. The work first focuses on the relevant EU acquis, examining all aspects of EU law that may be relevant to damages claims (whether brought by a consumer or not) such as those concerning fault, alternative dispute resolution, as well as private international law instruments. The book then delves into the economic underpinnings of claims for damages, including optimal enforcement theory and damages and the legal standards of liability, the evaluation of damages for cartels, exploitative conduct and exclusionary conduct. The work also examines collective actions (legal regime and financing aspects), the interaction between damages claims and public enforcement, causation as well as issues relating to multi-jurisdictional enforcement and damages claims. The book provides a discussion of the emerging field of competion law damages and explores the important questions it raises about the use of the traditional tort law catergories in an area of law that is heavily infused with economic analysis. It combines a corrective justice perspective with an empirical and theoretical analysis of the practice of competiton law damages in various jurisdictions in Europe. Rather than adopting the traditional economic analysis law of approach, the authors respect the autonomy of the fields of law and economics, while attempting to identify the areas of conflict that may emerge when economic concepts and categories are integrated in the legal system.