European Parliament Votes on E-Commerce and Jurisdiction

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 17th Sep 2000

The European Parliament will this week vote on the Wallis Report, which contains the contentious issues on jurisdiction and e-commerce. In a cross-border dispute, within the EU, arising out of a web site transaction, whose courts, the consumers' or the businesses', should have jurisdiction?

Although the main thrust of the report about Alternative Dispute Resolution was successfully voted in Diana Wallis' Legal Affairs Committee, there were other amendments on the key question over business and consumer jurisdiction that were unsuccessful. Diana now has an alliance of four parties supporting her stance.

The CBI, the Alliance for Electronic Business and the DTI are supporting Diana's report as a sensible compromise which supports existing consumer rights whilst respecting small businesses' concerns and fears about exposure to 15 different EU jurisdictions.

Commenting ahead of the vote Ms Wallis said: "This is a tremendous opportunity to give E-business in Europe a huge boost by building confidence amongst both consumers and businesses.

"With this report, the EU will be breaking new ground in laying the foundations for a Europe-wide system of alternative dispute resolution, particularly for on-line disputes."