European Law Against Unfair Competition Abstract The diploma thesis deals with the "European law against unfair competition" and the emphasis is placed on providing understandable and comprehensive summary of European law represented by two leading directives of the European Union. The first one is called Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and it focuses on relations between businesses and customers, while the second one, called Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive, concentrates on business to business relations. Moreover, the realm of unfair competition is richly complemented by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which dedicates many of its rulings to this problematic due to its indispensable significance. The content of diploma thesis is divided into several chapters. The chapter following the Introduction gives brief definitions of the terms typical for this branch of law, for example competition or average consumer. The third chapter takes into account historical development of unfair competition at European union level and its direct impact to Czech legislation. For this reason, the fourth chapter includes a short discourse about unfair competition from the point of view of the latest Czech Civil Code. Questions relating to consumers and protection of their...

The aim of this thesis is to examine the highly topical subject of regulation surrounding commercial practices. This examination is divided into four chapters. The first chapter looks at the notion of commercial practices by considering both the linguistic and legal definition of the term, and the importance of the regulation is proved. The second chapter deals with the question of division of law into its public and private counterparts. The discussion of the consequences of this division are crucial for a better analysis of the actual implementation of the EU Directive 2005/29/CE on unfair commercial practices. In the third chapter, the scope of application of this Directive is analysed and the main principles of regulation are described. The final section focuses on the Czech law on unfair commercial practices. In this segment, the text of the provisions of the Czech Code of Consumer Protection is compared to the Directive, and the system of legal redress and sanctions in the Code of Consumer Protection is critically analysed. The legal regulation of "promotional events", during which the ban of unfair commercial practices is often breached, is placed under scrutiny. The Directive was also implemented into the Code of Regulation of Advertisement. One subchapter of the fourth chapter is therefore...

La présente étude propose d'envisager la publicité dans son ensemble, à l'épreuve de la directive du 11 mai 2005 relative aux pratiques commerciales déloyales. L'étude s'efforcera de mettre en relief les apports de la directive au droit français de la publicité. La directive du 11 mai 2005 entend s'appliquer aux pratiques commerciales déloyales des entreprises vis-à-vis des consommateurs. Pour ce faire elle instaure un cadre juridique inédit. Elle consacre une nouvelle expression : celle de « pratiques commerciales » comprenant la publicité. Cette approche extensive, est accompagnée d'une liste détaillée et conséquente des pratiques déloyales sachant que la directive dont l'objectif est d'assurer un niveau de protection élevé au consommateur tout en contribuant à la réalisation du marché intérieur, s'impose aux États sans que ceux-ci ne puissent prévoir de mesures plus strictes que celles qu'elle prévoit. De ces considérations, émerge l'idée d'absorption de la notion de publicité par celle de pratiques commerciales. Celle-ci s'accompagne de l'absorption du régime juridique de la publicité par celui des pratiques commerciales d'une part, en raison de l'harmonisation prescrite par la directive et d'autre part, en raison de la liste pléthorique de pratiques commerciales déloyales établie par la directive. Ceci permettant de conclure que désormais la publicité n'est qu'un sous-ensemble compris dans l'ensemble plus vaste de celui des pratiques commerciales déloyales. / The present study proposes to consider advertising as a whole, the test of the directive of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair commercial practices. The study will seek tohighlight the contributions of the directive in the french advertising law. The directive of 11May 2005 is intended to protect european consumers against unfair commercial practices.This directive is intended to creates a unique legal framework. It involves a new term: the “commercial practices” including advertising. This broad approach is accompanied by adetailed and consistent list of unfair practices, knowing that the directive which aims to ensure a high level of consumer protection while contributing to the achievement of the internal market, is obligatory for states without that they can not provide more stringentmeasures than those provided. These considerations, the idea emerged to absorb the conceptof advertising that commercial practice. This is accompanied by the absorption of the legal regime of the advertising commercial practices, firstly, due to the harmonization required by the directive and secondly, because of the bloated list of unfair trade practices established by the directive. This allows to conclude that advertising is now a subset included in the larger whole of the unfair trade practices.

Traditionnellement, le droit prend soin de distinguer entre les clauses, parties d’un acte juridique, et les pratiques qui sont des faits juridiques. Pourtant, le droit des pratiques restrictives de concurrence semble réaliser une assimilation de ces deux notions, en qualifiant de pratiques restrictives de concurrence certaines clauses. L’étude analyse cette qualification d’une clause en pratique en proposant un critère et en s’interrogeant sur ses effets : la possible contestation de clauses sur le fondement du droit des pratiques restrictives de concurrence. En invitant à une réflexion sur cet aspect du droit des pratiques restrictives de concurrence, il s’agit également de s’interroger sur les finalités de cette matière, autant que sur la possibilité d’une meilleure intégration de la contestation de clauses dans un droit des pratiques commerciales déloyales entre professionnels en construction. / Generally, the law is careful to distinguish between the clauses, part of a legal act, and practices, that are legal facts. Yet, the law about restrictive competition practices seems to realise an assimilation of these two concepts, and provide the classification of a clause in restrictive competitive practice. The study analyses the classification of a clause into practice by proposing a criterion and pondering its effects: possible challenge clauses on the bases of the right of restrictive practices. By inviting a reflection on this aspect of the law of restrictive practices, it is also to question the aims of this particular law, as well as on the possibility of a better integration of the challenge clauses in a law about unfair trade practices between professionals in construction.

Économiquement et politiquement, la société occidentale est menée par deux ensembles que sont l’Union européenne et les États-Unis d’Amérique. D’un point de vue juridique, cette distinction répond à une autre qu’est celle entre les États de tradition romano-germanique et ceux de common law. Aujourd’hui, cette distinction s’estompe tant ces deux systèmes juridiques se confondent. Sur la forme d’abord, les droits de common law recourent de manière croissante aux droits statutaires, et inversement les droits continentaux laissent une place grandissante à la jurisprudence et notamment à celle de la Cour de Justice de l’Union européenne. Sur le fond ensuite, ces deux systèmes juridiques et leurs pendants économiques s’unifient autour d’une économie de marché qu’ils souhaitent protéger des comportements nuisibles aux consommateurs, aux concurrents, et donc in fine au marché lui-même. Or, cette protection nécessite, notamment, d’imposer une loyauté lors de l’emploi de pratiques commerciales par des professionnels vis-à-vis de consommateurs.C’est pourquoi, le 11 mai 2005, a été promulguée une directive relative aux pratiques commerciales déloyales des entreprises vis-à-vis des consommateurs qui harmonise de façon maximale la qualification de ces pratiques sans traiter de leur régime juridique. Dès lors, il semble nécessaire de comparer les systèmes européen et anglo-américain, notamment par la considération de la théorie des economic torts, afin d’étudier si ces derniers pourraient s’enrichir l’un de l’autre. Il sera ainsi démontré que si la qualification poursuit les mêmes raisonnements, la réaction face à de tels comportements est quant à elle plus nuancée. / Economically and politically, the Western society is led by two main sets which are the European Union and the United States of America. Juridically, this distinction matches with a more general one wich can be observed between traditional romano-germanic states and those submitted to the common law. Nowadays, this distinction tend towards disappearance because of the intermingling of these two legal systems. Indeed, regarding the form first, common law states resort more and more to statutory laws, and conversely, traditional romano-germanic laws leave a growing room for the case law, and especially, for the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. In substance then, because those two legal systems correspond to two economic systems unified around a market economy. They want to protect it against damaging behaviours for consumers, competitors, and in fine for the market itself But this protection require in particular to order fairness during the use of business-to-consumer commercial practices. That is why, the European Parliament and the Council, announced a directive concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market, which contains maximum harmonisation provisions about unfair commercial practices, but without provisions about their juridical regime. Then, it seems necessary to compare the European system with the American one, especialy with the consideration of the theory of the economic torts, in order to study if these two can enrich each other. So, it will be demonstrated that if the classification follows the same arguments on either side of the Atlantic, the responses to those behaviours is more contrasted.

La seconde moitié du XXème siècle a été marquée par l'avènement de la sociétéde consommation et, corrélativement, par l'apparition d'un droit nouveau dont l'objectif est de protéger les consommateurs : le droit de la consommation. Il se définit par sa finalité comme l'ensemble des règles dont l'objet est de protéger les intérêts des consommateurs et s'applique essentiellement dans les contrats de consommation. Aucun régime général de la sanction de la violation des dispositions consuméristes n'a été organisé par le législateur. Les sanctions prévues sont majoritairement des sanctions pénales, les sanctions civiles sont alors celles du droit commun des contrats.A partir du droit positif, l'étude cherche à construire un régime spécial de la sanction, commun à tous les contrats de consommation. L'étude est orientée vers la recherche de sanctions efficaces, qui permettent de renforcer l'effectivité de la règle de droit et la protection des consommateurs. Elle distingue nécessairement l' analyse de l'efficacité de la fonction réparatrice de la sanction, qui est conditionnée par la prise en compte de la situation de la victime du comportement sanctionné, et l'analyse de l'efficacité de la fonction dissuasive de la sanction qui est conditionnée par la prise en compte de la situation de l'auteur du comportement sanctionné. / The second half of the 20th century has been marked by the emergence ofconsumer society and correspondingly by the evolution of a new area of law: consumer law. This field of law can be defined as a body of rules aiming at protecting the interests of consumers and which is essentially applied in the context of consumer contracts. The legislator has not established a general system of sanctions for the violation of consumer law provisions. The sanctions are mostly criminal in nature, while the civil sanctions are those provided for by general contract law.On the basis of the existing rules this thesis aims to establish a specific system ofsanctions common to all consumer contracts. The thesis is governed by the search for adequate sanctions which would increase the effectiveness of the legal rules as well as the effectiveness of the protection of consumers. The effectiveness of the reparative function of the sanctions is analysed separately from the effectiveness of their deterrent function. This distinction is necessary, since the reparative function of sanctions is determined by the situation of the victim of the violation of the rules, whereas the deterrent function of sanctions takes into account the situation of the person responsible for the violation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:29:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabiola Meira de Almeida Santos.pdf: 864245 bytes, checksum: f73c9c68ec473a97001d22bf4eadbcf9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-13 / The purpose of this study is to investigate digital marketing and consumer protection. It seeks to scrutinize recent digital marketing techniques and respective consequences towards consumer relations. In order to address the issue, the study firstly draws the profile of consumer society and technological development verified in the last few years, which is necessary to understand the reasoning for alterations in consumers behavior and of the techniques adopted by suppliers to place its products and services in the market. Through the analysis of consumer market, the study then scrutinizes Brazilian Consumer Protection Code, a statutory Law full of principles, as a public order Law, specially the provisions of article 4 of Law No. 8078/90, that is, those pertaining to Brazilian policy of consumer relations, to the other principles that might be gathered from the Code and, within this context, the principles relating to advertisement, marketing and commercial practices. Another approach refers to marketing development, its main characteristics and brief considerations regarding the relation between advertisement and semiotics, through the study of marketing in the digital age and of current online advertisement techniques. This background allows the analysis of main issues deriving from digital marketing techniques, when they are undertook without observation to Consumer Protection Code, such as: creation of consumer databases, products customization and building up of consumer profiles by means of violating consumers privacy as a result of the nonstopping seek of sensitive information, besides unfair competition. The results of the research indicate that such practices should be deemed as deceptive commercial practices by virtue of the increasing unreasonable advantages demanded by suppliers of digital age, and presents suggestions and legislative bills that aim to avoid aggravation of consumers vulnerability and protect its privacy / O presente estudo traz como objeto de investigação o marketing digital e a proteção do consumidor e pretende abordar e analisar as recentes técnicas de marketing digital e as consequências para as relações de consumo. Para adentrar o tema, o trabalho traça, primeiramente, um perfil da sociedade de consumo e da evolução tecnológica surgida nos últimos anos, necessário para entender a razão da alteração de comportamento do consumidor e das técnicas de oferecimento de produtos e serviços. Com a análise do mercado de consumo passa-se a discorrer sobre o Código de Defesa do Consumidor, sua natureza de norma principiológica e cogente, por se tratar de norma ordem pública, especialmente os preceitos que regem as relações de consumo, desde os previstos no artigo 4º da Lei nº 8.078/90, ou seja, aqueles atinentes à política nacional das relações de consumo até os demais que podem ser extraídos do Código e, neste contexto, os princípios concernentes à publicidade, o marketing e as práticas comerciais. Outra abordagem alude à evolução do marketing, suas características principais e breves considerações sobre a relação dos anúncios publicitários com a semiótica, chegando ao estudo do marketing na era digital e das atuais técnicas de publicidade on-line. Com esse pano de fundo o estudo encontra subsídios para discorrer sobre os principais problemas que as técnicas de marketing digital, quando utilizadas sem o respeito ao Código de Defesa do Consumidor, acarretam para a sociedade, entre eles: a formação de banco de dados, a customização de produtos e formação de perfis por meio da violação da intimidade e da vida privada em razão da busca incessante de dados sensíveis e a concorrência desleal. O resultado da pesquisa aponta no sentido de que referidos atos configuram práticas comerciais abusivas em razão das crescentes vantagens manifestamente excessivas exigidas pelo fornecedor da era digital e apresenta algumas sugestões e projetos de lei que tentam impedir que a vulnerabilidade do consumidor reste por demais exacerbada e sua privacidade corrompida

This thesis deals with consumer misleading in the field of food labeling. The goal of the thesis was to determine specific products that may mislead consumers by their location and label in particular hypermarkets in Prague and Frýdek-Místek. Analysis of the potential misleading of the consumers has three parts -- examining of an obligatory information on the product package, checking of the location of the products in the shops, and the questionnaire. One part of the thesis deals with law (acts, judgements and other regulations) in the field of food labeling and misleading the consumer.