Marco B.M. Loos

• Professor of Private Law
• Professor at University of Amsterdam

The creation of a regulatory framework for the supply of digital content has been a central and ever-growing feature of the EU legislative agenda. The drive towards an EU Digital Market has already resulted in a wealth of legislation harmonising various aspects of the laws of EU Member States. The second edition of EU Digital Law contains an in-dep...

The creation of a regulatory framework for the supply of digital content has been a central and ever-growing feature of the EU legislative agenda. The drive towards an EU Digital Market has already resulted in a wealth of legislation harmonising various aspects of the laws of EU Member States. The second edition of EU Digital Law contains an in-dep...

The creation of a regulatory framework for the supply of digital content has been a central and ever-growing feature of the EU legislative agenda. The drive towards an EU Digital Market has already resulted in a wealth of legislation harmonising various aspects of the laws of EU Member States. The second edition of EU Digital Law contains an in-dep...

The creation of a regulatory framework for the supply of digital content has been a central and ever-growing feature of the EU legislative agenda. The drive towards an EU Digital Market has already resulted in a wealth of legislation harmonising various aspects of the laws of EU Member States. The second edition of EU Digital Law contains an in-dep...

The creation of a regulatory framework for the supply of digital content has been a central and ever-growing feature of the EU legislative agenda. The drive towards an EU Digital Market has already resulted in a wealth of legislation harmonising various aspects of the laws of EU Member States. The second edition of EU Digital Law contains an in-dep...

p class="MsoNormal"Traditionally, European consumer law has primarily focused on consumer protection. Much attention was spent on strengthening consumer rights and later also on enhancing the enforcement of consumer rights. More recently, consumer law has also been given a role to play in stimulating sustainability and a circular economy, in partic...

In this paper, the transparency requirement, regulated in Article 5 UCTD, is discussed. This provision requires traders to draft terms that are to be incorporated into contracts with consumers in plain and intelligible language. The paper discusses the function of the transparency requirement, the different elements, and the consequences of a breac...

Following a series of complimentary studies assessing the current application of the principle of transparency of consumer information in Croatia, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, and the UK, this paper presents research findings on how to improve its effectiveness. Documented differences in national laws and practice indicate the need for a more...

Until a few years ago, nothing seemed impossible in terms of the further development of European Private Law. Important projects such as the Common Frame of Reference and a Common European Sales Law were discussed, even a European Civil Code seemed to be within reach. With the failure of these ideas, however, the great visions for European Private...

“Harmonising Digital Law” has become a crucial task for European and national legislation in view of the challenges of the “digital revolution” for the European Union and for its Member States. The implementation of the 2019 “Twin Directives” on the sale of goods and the supply of digital content and services represents one of the most important st...

This book provides a critical assessment of European private law, to suggest how it might develop in the future. It reflects on how its recent expansive period, heralding an ambitious future including a European Civil Code, came to an abrupt end. It suggests that development can still happen, albeit in a fragmented way and on a smaller scale. This...

This article discusses to what extent the final text of the Modernization Directive ultimately delivers on the promises of the Communication ‘A New Deal for Consumers’ regarding the modernization and better enforcement of European consumer protection rules. In particular, I will discuss the provisions regarding individual and public enforcement of...

In this special issue, a series of authors from all over Europe discuss aspects of both the proposal for a Representative Actions Directive and the proposal for a Modernization Directive. Both directives deal with better enforcement of EU consumer law and follow from the European Commission’s Communication on a New Deal for Consumers. In this intro...

Modernisering van het Europese consumentenrecht: meer vlees op het bot (I) In eerdere publicaties ben ik ingegaan op de Mededeling ‘Een New Deal voor consumenten’ en het daarmee samenhangende voorstel voor een moderniseringsrichtlijn. In dit artikel bespreek ik de verdere voortgang van het richtlijnvoorstel, waar inmiddels politieke overeenstemming...

This article discusses the European Commission’s proposal for a directive regarding the modernization and better enforcement of European consumer protection rules, and the relation between this proposal and the Commission’s recent Communication ‘A New Deal for Consumers’. In the second part of this article I will discuss to what extent the proposal...

As the 21st Ius Commune conference on European private law coincided with the 35th anniversary of the Maastricht law school, it was deemed a good occasion to look back at the evolutions that have taken place in the European law of obligations since 1981. More particularly, this book is the result from a discussion about how particular changes or de...

Cambridge Core - Law: General Interest - Digital Content and Distance Sales - edited by Ignace Claeys

INTRODUCTION On 9 December 2015, the European Commission submitted the first three proposals for the implementation of the Digital Single Market Strategy. These proposals identify obstacles to the conclusion of cross-border contracts and aim at taking away these barriers to the internal market by harmonising the contract law rules for such contract...

INTRODUCTION In this paper I will describe the implementation of the Consumer Rights Directive, or CRD, in The Netherlands. Section 2 will deal with the provisions of the implementing act and the relation between these provisions and other provisions of consumer law. Section 3 will discuss the relationship between the rules on consumer sales and th...

Cambridge Core - Contract Law - The Position of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in European Contract Law - edited by Marco B.M. Loos

De Geschillencommissie is de overkoepelende organisatie voor ruim 70 geschillencommissies op het gebied van consumentenzaken in Nederland, en voor een geschillencommissie voor beroep en bedrijf. Het belang van de organisatie voor het consumentenrecht is groot, nu het leeuwendeel van de consumentengeschillen in Nederland buiten de rechter om wordt a...

Incorporation of standard terms is a much-debated issue in almost all legal systems. Any legal instrument on contract law therefore must provide an answer as to when terms are incorporated – but answers may vary considerably from one legal system to the next. In this chapter the provisions of the – now withdrawn – proposal for a Common European Sal...

The Unfair Contract Terms Directive offers consumers protection from preformulated imbalanced contract terms. While the standard terms and conditions of online service providers have previously been accused of harming clients of such online services, a comprehensive analysis of the potential unfair character of such terms and conditions in line wit...

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is seen by the European legislator as a key instrument for the enforcement of consumer rights. To further ADR, the EU has adopted the ADR Directive, which was to be implemented by the Member States by 9 July 2015. This article shows that the Directive has shortcomings precisely where it is thought to provide sol...

De richtlijn consumentenkoop heeft het wettelijk vermoeden ingevoerd dat een gebrek aan conformiteit dat binnen zes maanden na aflevering wordt ontdekt, al op het moment van de aflevering bestond. In dit boek wordt onderzocht of dit vermoeden op juiste wijze is geimplementeerd in Polen, Duitsland, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Nederland.

On 9 December 2015, the European Commission submitted a proposal for a directive for contracts for online and other distance sales of goods, and a proposal for a directive on digital content. This paper discusses the scope of the proposals, conformity and remedies, and matters regarding the supply of digital content and the modification or terminat...

Access to justice in consumer law In many areas of private law, mandatory substantive law protects consumers. In this contribution, I will argue that awarding consumer rights without properly regulating the consumer’s access to the court system renders these rights unenforceable through the ordinary courts. Several obstacles to the proper enforceme...

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is seen by the European legislator as a key instrument for the enforcement of consumer rights. To further ADR, the EU has adopted the ADR Directive, which was to be implemented by the Member States by 9 July 2015. This paper shows that the Directive has shortcomings precisely where it is thought to provide solut...

This paper discusses whether and to what extent the transparency principle is applicable to standard contract terms legislation under European Union law and what the consequences are when the principle, in so far as it is recognized, is breached. To that extent, it focuses first on the Unfair Contract Terms Directive and second on the proposal for...

The application of consumer law to digital content contracts encounters a number of obstacles. Some of these are rather typical for digital content markets, e.g., the legal consequences of the classification of digital content as “goods” or “services”, and more importantly, the absence of general benchmarks to evaluate the conformity of digital con...

This paper examines whether the provisions of the Common European Sales Law, as published by the European Commission, are fit to be applied to distance contracts for the supply of digital content to consumers. Both the original proposal and the amendments suggested by the European Parliament are discussed.

If the Common European Sales Law (CESL) is adopted, commercial parties will have the opportunity to choose between two international legal instruments for the regulation of their international commercial sales contracts. Whereas CESL is available to both consumer and commercial sales contracts, the Vienna Sales Convention on the International Sale...

If the Common European Sales Law (CESL) is adopted, commercial parties will have the opportunity to choose between two international legal instruments for the regulation of their international commercial sales contracts. Whereas CESL is available to both consumer and commercial sales contracts, the Vienna Sales Convention (CISG) is intended for com...

With regard to cost and fee allocation in the Netherlands, the starting point is that the loser pays all costs (Art. 237 para. 1, first sentence, Code of Civil Procedure.), a principle considered to be justified on grounds of procedural risk and policy (H.J. Snijders, M. Ynzonides, and G.J. Meijer, Nederlands burgerlijk procesrecht, 3rd. edition, n...

The inclusion of provisions on digital content, including ‘gratuitous’ digital content, in the Common European Sales Law constitutes an improvement in respect to existing EU legislation on sales contracts. However, some amendments are necessary, given the fact that digital content differs from goods. This briefing note critically assesses the relev...

In this paper, the regulation in standard contract terms in the proposal for a Commono European Sales Law (CESL) is compared with the regulation in the Unfair Terms Directive, the Draft Common Frame of Reference (DCFR) and the Vienna Sales Convention (CISG). The paper starts with an overview of the content of Chapter 8 CESL. Next, the matter of the...

The text, structure and terminology of Chapter 8 CESL on ‘Unfair contract terms’ deliberately are quite similar to the Unfair Terms Directive 1993. However, given the fact that the Unfair Terms Directive 1993 only provided for minimum harmonisation and that, in this respect, the self-standing nature that the Commission envisages for the CESL is fun...

The past decade has shown a rapid development of the markets for digital content. The further development of these markets, however, may be hindered because of the lack of a functioning legal framework to deal with digital content contracts. In this article, it is argued that the future Optional Instrument should contain rules governing digital con...

In this paper it is argued that in order to be effective, the Optional Instrument’s scope should be as broad as possible. This implies it should be available to both cross-border and domestic contracts, both to B2B- and B2C-contracts, and substantively it should deal with both general contract law and specific contract law, most notably with servic...

In this paper, it is argued that even though the legal basis of an Optional Instrument (OI) seems fragile as it does not lead to harmonisation but to the introduction of a new regime next to the national legal systems. This seems to imply that the legal basis should not be Art. 115 TFEU, but rather art. 352 TFEU. Such an instrument could then only...

Vanuit consumentenrechtelijk perspectief wordt onderzocht wat het personele, materiële en territoriale toepassingsgebied van het toekomstige Optionele Instrument zou moeten zijn om effectief te kunnen zijn, waarna dit wordt vergeleken met de door de Europese Commissie gemaakte keuzes. Geconcludeerd wordt dat het materiële toepassingsgebied uitgebre...

In NTER 2011/5 berichtten wij over de behandeling van het voorstel voor een Richtlijn betreffende consumentenrechten (COM(2008) door het Europees Parlement en de Raad van Ministers. Aanmerkelijk sneller dan verwacht is het richtlijnvoorstel in de eindfase beland: het Europees Parlement heeft op 23 juni 2011 een sterk gewijzigde tekst in eerste lezi...

Op 1 juli 2010 publiceerde de Europese Commissie het Groenboek over beleidsopties voor de ontwikkeling van een Europees contractenrecht voor consumenen en ondernemingen. Hiermee begon de Europese Commissie een publieke consultatie over de vraag wat de Commissie met het in 2009 gepubliceerde Ontwerp Gemeenschappelijk Referentiekader (DCFR) dient te...

Op het eind 2008 ingediende voorstel voor een Richtlijn consumentenrechten is veel kritiek gekomen omdat het ertoe zou leiden dat het niveau van consumentenbescherming in veel landen, waaronder Nederland, zou worden verlaagd. Zowel binnen de Raad van Ministers als in het Europees Parlement is de kritiek serieus genomen. De Raad en het Parlement heb...

Volledige harmonisatie van het consumentencontractenrecht heeft voor de coherentie van het privaatrecht van de lidstaten grote nadelen. Duidelijke voordelen voor de verwezenlijking van de interne markt zijn ook niet te ontwaren. Volledige harmonisatie van het kooprecht en de regeling van de voorwaarden is dan ook in strijd met het evenredigheidsbeg...

This paper looks into several aspects of Book IV.A of the Draft Common Frame of Reference and, in particular with regard to remedies, of Book III DCFR. Where appropriate, these provisions are compared with the corresponding provisions in the Principles of European Law on Sales (PELS) and, occasionally, with those of the Vienna Sales Convention (CIS...

On 8 October 2008 the European Commission submitted the proposal for a new Consumer rights directive to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. This paper discusses the type of harmonisation that is foreseen in the proposed directive. It first addresses the choice between minimum and full harmonisation and the question whether there i...

The proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive is to replace the existing minimum harmonization by full harmonization. Even though the proposal introduces some welcome additions to the current European legislation in the area of sales contracts in particular, the rules on transfer of risk – as a whole, the proposal is rather disappointing. If it woul...

Services have since long been an underdeveloped area of law. Neither at the national nor at the European level a coherent body of services contract law exists. The Principles of European Law on Service Contracts (hereafter: PEL SC), published in 2007, hope to fill the void at least to some extent. The PEL SC have been developed through the cooperat...

In many areas, mandatory substantive law protects consumers. At first glance, this seems to indicate that the position of consumers is well-regulated and that consumers are well-protected. The question arises, however, whether consumers may actually make use of their substantive rights. Can consumers enforce their contractual rights through the ord...

De koper van een zaak wordt na levering eigenaar van die zaak en heeft als eigenaar uiteraard het recht om die zaak te gebruiken. Dat gebruik maakt de zaak wel tweedehands. Dat roept de vraag op of de koper gehouden is om een ‘gebruiksvergoeding’ te betalen indien hij de koopovereenkomst ontbindt (of vervanging van de zaak verlangt) en de zaak teru...

Op tal van gebieden genieten consumenten de bescherming van dwingendrechtelijke regels. In dit artikel staat de vraag centraal of consumenten de aldus aan hen toegekende rechten wel kunnen effectueren. Onderzocht wordt, mede op basis van empirische gegevens, op welke feitelijke problemen een consument stuit indien hij zijn rechten wil handhaven bij...

In artikel 7:500 lid 1 onder b BW wordt een reisovereenkomst omschreven als de overeenkomst waarbij een reisorganisator zich jegens zijn wederpartij verbindt tot het verschaffen van een door hem aangeboden, van te voren georganiseerde reis die uit ten minste twee van de hierna te noemen drie genoemde diensten bestaat en daarbij meer dan 24 uur duur...

Deze bijdrage betreft het schriftelijkheidsvereiste van artikel 7:2 lid 1 BW en de bedenktijd van artikel 7:2 lid 2 BW. Onderwerpen die aan bod komen zijn: de functies van het schriftelijkheidsvereiste, de gevolgen die het schriftelijkheidsvereiste met zich brengen, de binding van de verkoper aan de mondelinge overeenstemming en de vraag of voor de...

The existing Consumer sales directive is one of the directives which will be replaced by the new Consumer rights directive. The proposal for this directive was published on 8 October 2008. In this contribution I will discuss the regulation of consumer sales law in the proposal.

On 8 October 2008 the European Commission adopted the Proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights. This framework-directive is intended to be the climax of the work on the revision of the consumer acquis. It builds in particular on the Green Paper on the Review of the consumer acquis and the more than 300 reactions the Commission received on the Gr...

In 2008 publiceerde de Europese Commissie het voorstel voor een richtlijn consumentenrechten die de huidige richtlijnen consumentenkoop, algemene voorwaarden, colportage en verkoop op afstand zou moeten vervangen. Het voorstel gaat uit van volledige harmonisatie. Dit boek vormt een reactie vanuit de Nederlandse rechtswetenschap op het voorstel van...

De richtlijn oneerlijke contractsbedingen 1 (hierna ook: Richtlijn) is zonder meer een van de belangrijkste bestaande richtlijnen op het gebied van het Europees privaat-recht. De richtlijn raakt het hart van het contractenrecht – de inhoud van overeen-komsten – en vormt daarmee een belangrijk instrument tot harmonisatie van dat contractenrecht, ook...