Varstvo konkurentov pred nepoštenimi poslovnimi praksami na podlagi pravil varstva potrošnikov

slovenian

2013

volume 68, issue 3/4

Univerza v Ljubljani, Pravna fakulteta
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

Unfair commercial practices in the relations between businesses and consumers (business to consumer or B2C) are regulated at the Union level with the Directive 2005/29 on unfair commercial practices, which does not (directly) protect competitors against practices in business to business or B2B relations. As unfair commercial practices often harm both interests, interests of consumers and competitors alike, it deems inappropriate at the first sight to directly protect only one of these categories. It deems that the Directive 2005/29 ensures satisfying protection of competitors under cover of protection of consumers' interests, due to its broad formulation of unfair commercial practices and indirect protection of competitors. Nevertheless, detailed analysis of the wording of the Directive 2005/29 shows that all commercial practices harming competitors cannot be squeezed under the umbrella of this broad definition to achieve the holistic protection of competitors. The author first introduces the dualistic framework of the protection against unfair commercial practices and the content of the Green Paper on unfair trading practices in the business-to-business food and non-food supply chain in Europe. In the second part, the author goes into the analysis of how broad the interpretation of protected interest on the basis of the Directive's provisions could really be and to what extent is appropriate to transpose the rationale of consumer protection to the business to business relations, focusing especially on the protection of the weaker party and the interpretation of the fairness test.

20.01.2017