Brussels e-commerce regulations already set

Written by Diana Wallis MEP and published in Financial Times (full text) on Thu 28th Sep 2006

Mr Roebuck (Letters, September 21) confuses the issues relative to cross border sales. The European legal framework dealing with jurisdiction (which country's courts an action is tried in) is already set in the Brussels 1 Regulation and is not likely to be changed. The right of a consumer to have an issue dealt with in his or her own country's court having been recently reaffirmed and underlined both by the European Parliament and the Council in their respective votes and positions on the Services Directive.

The assertion that the growth of EU e-commerce is being inhibited or blocked because of SMEs being scared about making their websites available cross border because of exposure to different jurisdictions is not born out by the evidence from European consumer information centres which indicates instead that consumers are the shy ones when it comes to using 'foreign' web sites; being concerned about issues of foreign contract law and ability to access redress if things go wrong.

The follow up legislation which Mr Roebuck criticises is merely the logical extension of the existing situation allowing the courts to apply their own national law rather than a foreign law to the case under consideration. To have the consumer's jurisdiction and the seller's law as Mr Roebuck suggests would be even more complicated and confusing and certainly not aid cross border access to justice for any of the parties to an action.

To add to the confusion the UK government has notified its intention not to opt into this legislative proposal thus depriving UK consumers and others of a more coherent and simplified cross border European legal regime, this should be the real worry.