Volume 14, Issue 1

This article analyses a consumer rights approach to protection against discrimination in EU law that has been established with the adoption of the so-called Payment Accounts Directive 2014/92/EU of 23 July 2014 (PAD). The approach has potential to sustainably transform the legal coexistence of, on the one side, EU consumer law and, on the other side, EU anti-discrimination law. In form of a so far unprecedented regulation, it directly links the non-discrimination principle of Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights with consumer protection. At the same time, the approach ties in with traditional concepts in consumer law relating to vulnerable consumers and to services of general economic interest. Following the year which has passed since the transposition deadline of 18 September 2016, this article argues that the PAD constitutes a first step towards a consumer-specific anti-discrimination protection of its own kind, the key features of which it seeks to outline.

The recent reforms of the French Civil Code have also regulated remedies for breach of contract, by introducing price reduction as a general instrument that can be applied to all contractual types. Firstly, the article analyses the harmonisation projects and regulations on which the French reform claims to be based, for the purposes of verifying whether the French legal framework only reproduces solutions already tested or whether it is innovative with respect to such models. This study highlights the introduction of innovative solutions through which price reduction is achieved. Whilst price reduction is usually ordered by the court, following a claim by the non-breaching creditor, under the French model the price reduction remedy does not require the court’s intervention as it can be performed directly by the creditor: this is an automatic and not a court-based remedy. Secondly, the article also analyses whether the same outcome that is obtained through the automatic price reduction can also be achieved through the use of other legal instruments. This article focuses on a comparative law analysis with the common law system with respect to compensation for damages under English law. With respect to the civil law models, the article examines the Italian model in which parties generally resort to actions for compensation and the exception of partial breach.

This article provides an overview of cases decided by the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning contract law. The present issue covers the period between July 2017 and the beginning of January 2018.