If a shop refuses to reimburse or fix a faulty washing machine or a railway company refuses to compensate for a delay, consumers can feel discouraged. Most consumers do not go to court individually for small value harm as they consider it is unworthy of their time and efforts. Thanks to consumer Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) measures, consumers and businesses can resolve disputes out of court in a simple, fast, and cost-effective way. 

Why Alternative Dispute Resolution is important

In short, Alternative Dispute Resolution gives consumers easy access to redress, even for low value harms. 
Such systems involve neutral third parties (“ADR bodies”), who can be ombudsmen, conciliators or mediators. The initial European directive, adopted in 2013, imposed on ADR bodies to be independent, timely and expert. Following evaluation studies showing that the use of ADR was uneven across Europe, the EU decided it was time to modernise rules.

The review of the Directive took place between 2023 and 2025. Now consumers in Europe can turn to ADR bodies in case of:

• disputes appearing before or after purchase. Examples include misleading advertising practices, when compulsory information (e.g. price) is lacking from the product description, inconformity, and guarantee problems.
• disputes involve traders established outside the EU - provided the trader agrees to participate in the procedure.

Even though trader participation failed to become mandatory, Member States can still impose extra obligations to increase consumer protection at national level. It is necessary in sectors yielding a high number of complaints like transport and tourism.

What BEUC did

ADR represented one of our strongest challenges in making sure rights make it off the paper they are written on and become effective protections for consumers. BEUC advocated for consumers’ needs to be able to solve disputes out of court in the run up to the directive’s adoption in 2013. 

Afterwards, BEUC played a strong role in informing the decisions to modernise the rules. Consumer organisations from the BEUC network closely monitored how the Directive was rolled out and helped identify shortcomings, such as the low ADR awareness among consumers and traders alike (like in France), a lack of trader participation and in some countries, poor service quality. BEUC also collected and shared experience with other stakeholders, such ADR bodies, European Consumer Centres, national competent authorities and EU Institutions. 

Timeline

• 2013: Adoption of the EU Directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and the EU Regulation on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform.
• 2023: EU Commission proposal to amend the ADR Directive.
• July 2025: The EU Online Dispute Resolution platform is discontinued. Despite improvements over time, this digital tool failed to help consumers use ADR widely. It will be replaced with a new one.
• 2025: Adoption of the revised ADR Directive
• 2027-2028: Entry into application