JJUA55237U EU Consumer Protection Law - NOTE: the course is cancelled in the autumn semester 2019

Volume 2019/2020
Content

Catalin Gabriel Stanescu is an international scholar and a Romanian attorney with more than 14 years of practice in commercial and civil law. He holds a PhD in Consumer Finance and authored several papers focusing on debt collection, consumer law, consumer ADR, digital consumer protection, unfair business terms and banking regulation. He is also the recipient of a Marie Curie Fellowship set to start in 2019, with a project that will analyze in depth unfair debt collection practices at EU level and their impact on consumer-debtors.

 

The course aims to provide a practical overview of EU Consumer Protection.

It analyzes the most relevant areas of legislative intervention:

  • electronic commerce and distance selling,
  • sale of consumer goods and related guarantees,
  • product liability,
  • standard and unfair contract forms
  • unfair business practices
  • financial services and enforcement of claims against consumers
  • private debt collection, self-help mechanisms and fair debt collection practices.
  • consumer disputes, consumer arbitration and online dispute resolution and
  • choice of law problems
Learning Outcome

Knowledge

The course is relevant for all students who wish to seek a career as practicing lawyers or in-house counsels in law firms or companies active on the EU internal market and abroad, but also for those who will undertake positions in public agencies, policy making departments of governmental institutions or NGOs across the EU. In this manner, the course contributes in making the master degree more valuable in a practically recognizable way for the people recruiting candidates from the Faculty of Law.

Drawing from the teacher’s extensive experience as practicing attorney and in-house counsel, the course adopts the perspective of the practitioner and uses real-life examples and case studies.

The course familiarizes students not only with the understanding of black letter law but also with the policy rationale behind this particular field. Thus, it is focused both on theoretical and practical issues, as well as possible solutions, as they appear from legislation and relevant case law.

 

In terms of knowledge, students will be able to:

  • describe and explain concepts as defined by law and developed by case law
  • explain various policy considerations
  • gain knowledge of  legal, ethical and moral issues concerning various topics

 

Skills

As a result students will develop the ability to:

  • understand general rules and principles of consumer protection law and to apply them in national and cross-border scenarios
  • identify and understand the different levels of consumer protection in the EU, and the effect of such discrepancies on national and transnational commerce
  • analyze the policy rationales underlying the different regulatory choices and to argue on their strengths and weaknesses

 

Competences

At the end of the course, students will have acquired a number of competences which will enable them to:

  • identify abusive practices and /or terms and possible remedies for aggrieved consumers in real life scenarios
  • individually and/or jointly plan, work and handle complex cases, carry out jurisprudential analysis and prepare competent legal advice on practical issues or hypotethicals
  • draft legal documents: petitions, claims, defenses, memos
  • critically reflect on current and future developments in the field in both a European and international context.

The course combines interactive lectures with individual and group discussions as as well as exercises consisting in case -analysis, case-solving and legal drafting. At the same time, students will have the occasion to visit the Danish Consumer Ombudsman.

Literature

Recommended litterature:

Case-law:

  •  Reiner Schulze, Hans Schulte-Nolke and Jackie Jones – A Casebook on European Consumer Law, Hart Publishing, 2002
Minimal research skills are needed to complete some of the assignments and the written exam assignment
The course takes the format of lectures and active class participation. Hence, whenever possible, the participation of the students is expected, encouraged and appreciated. A large part of the course consists of practical exercises where students will be asked to analyze legal decisions, draft and prepare legal memos, consumer complaints or defenses, and present their findings to their peers.
The teaching and learning methods will thus include:
- lectures,
- group or individual assignments
- case studies and hypotheticals
- legal drafting
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 356,5
  • Seminar
  • 56
  • Total
  • 412,5
Oral
Individual
Collective
Continuous feedback during the course of the semester
Feedback by final exam (In addition to the grade)
Peer feedback (Students give each other feedback)

The course aims to make use of multiple types of feedback in order to ensure, on the one hand, the constant communication between teacher and students, and, on the other hand, that students understand what is expected of them and monitor the outcome of their work througout the course.

Credit
15 ECTS
Type of assessment
Oral examination, 20 min.
Oral exam with preparation, 20 minutes
Censorship form
External censorship
Exam period

The course is cancelled in the autumn semester 2019

Re-exam

The course is cancelled in the autumn semester 2019