In 2010, one in five European consumers encountered problems when buying goods and services in the single market.
To tackle this issue, the European Commission proposed a package of legislative proposals in 2011 to ensure that all EU consumers can solve their problems without going to court. For consumers shopping online from another EU country, the Commission wants to create an EU-wide single online platform, which will allow to solve contractual disputes entirely online within 30 days.
At the end of 2012, the Alternative and Online Dispute Resolution legislation was formally presented for voting. The ODR Regulation will set up a EU-wide online platform for handling disputes between consumers and traders, arising from online transactions. The platform will link all the national alternative dispute resolution entities and will operate in all official EU languages. Traders will be required to provide consumers with adequate information on ADR and ODR.
There are over 750 Alternative Dispute Resolution solutions in the EU today. They work differently and have different names e.g. arbitration, mediation, ombudsmen, complaints boards. In some countries, they only cover specific consumer disputes e.g. for financial services, energy supply, transport. In a few others, ADR covers all consumer disputes. Some offer the entire process online
Now the European parliament has taken things one step further and has allowed European citizens to lodge their complaints on the institution’s LinkedIn page. Before the vote on the ADR service goes through next week, the parliament is holding an informal consultation with European consumers to find out what has been lacking from their online shopping experience.
