On November 14th, Advocate General Bobek responded negatively (in the case of Schrems v. Facebook[1]) to the referring court’s question on whether Article 16 of Regulation (EU) 44/2001 should be interpreted as allowing a consumer to also introduce the claims of other consumers (collective redress). The AG added in no uncertain terms that it is not ‘the role of courts [...] to attempt at creating collective redress in consumer matters at the stroke of a pen’ (para §123).
Whereas such a matter should indeed not be approached lightly, BETTER FINANCE has since 2011 stressed the urgent need for a Community-level mechanism for both national and cross-border collective redress for EU citizens as financial services users. Considering that the financial sector remains one of the sectors which sees most potential mass claim issues and that recent events have proven the inability of EU consumers to obtain proper compensation for damages (for instance Dieselgate, CREF or the Foreign Exchange scandal to name but a few), it is quite obvious that the EU is already lagging behind and should make work of ensuring that proper instruments for effective judicial protection are put in place.
BETTER FINANCE is far from being alone in stressing that it is ‘high-time to act’ as emphasised by Monique Goyens of BEUC, also noting that there is a ‘blatant gap in effective consumer enforcement’.
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[1] Case C-498/16 Maximilian Schrems et al. v Facebook Ireland Ltd. OJ C441.