EU—Consumer protection

The referring court asked whether Council Directive (EC) 93/13 (on unfair terms in consumer contracts) (the Directive), in particular Arts 6(1), 7(1) and 8 thereof, read in conjunction with Arts 38 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the Charter), had to be interpreted as precluding national legislation which did not allow a consumer protection association to intervene in support of a consumer in proceedings for enforcement, against the latter, of an arbitration award.  

The court ruled that neither the Directive nor the directives that had followed it, adding to the legislative framework of the protection of consumers, contained any provision governing the role which might or had to be accorded to consumer protection associations in individual disputes involving a consumer. Thus, the Directive did not govern whether such associations had to be entitled to intervene in support in such individual disputes. It followed that, in the absence of EU legislation concerning the possibility for consumer protection associations