BEUC NEWS - 18.02.2022

In early 2020, the updated Consumer Protection Coordination Regulation (CPC Regulation) came into application with some important novelties, such as an alert mechanism for consumer organisations to inform national authorities and the European Commission about potentially illegal business practices. It promised to step up enforcement, giving consumer protection authorities significant powers to tackle cross-border violations of EU consumer law.

Two years on, it’s time to take stock. Though it has led to clear improvements, the tool’s full potential is yet to be unlocked and some shortcomings have come to light.

In our new report, ‘An unfinished journey: Consumer groups’ experience of CPC external alerts two years on,’ we look back on some of the results and examine how the Regulation has allowed consumer groups to file complaints, enhancing their role as market watchdogs to protect consumers as well as supporting authorities in their tasks.

The Regulation has also given BEUC as an EU umbrella organisation the possibility to file a complaint to the consumer protection authorities (‘external alerts’) on behalf of its members. To date, BEUC has filed four alerts. Most notably, a complaint by BEUC and 11 of its members against airlines for unfair practices during the early stages of the pandemic, resulted in 16 leading airlines committing to comply with EU law and reimburse consumers for cancelled flights.

More recently, consumer groups filed complaints against Nintendo for premature obsolescence of its Switch games controller, against WhatsApp for bombarding users with opaque notifications to accept its new terms of use and data policy, and against TikTok for failing to in particular to protect young people from unfair arrangements with virtual coins, hidden advertising and potentially harmful content.

The anniversary is also an opportunity to look ahead, so the report also details recommendations on how to improve the CPC Regulation for its upcoming revision. These include:

• Increased transparency from the European Commission and CPC authorities when processing consumer groups’ complaints and providing more procedural rights to them
• Consulting consumer groups who made an alert where relevant during the procedure, for example when a trader makes commitments
• Complaint processing should be accelerated to give consumers faster access to justice

The CPC Regulation has already made it easier for consumer groups to file complaints when traders breach EU consumer protection rules. A series of further improvements would unlock the Regulation’s potential for enforcement of the rules and ensure justice for consumers harmed by unfair practices.

To find out more, read our report.