民事诉讼法英文论文LISBON TREATY后的消费者纠纷解决：集体诉讼和替代程序.pdf

J Consum Policy (2013) 36:87– 110 DOI 10.1007/s10603-012-9202-0 ORIGINAL PAPER Consumer Dispute Resolution after The Lisbon Treaty: Collective Actions and Alternative Procedures Iris Benöhr Received: 30 August 2011 /Accepted: 12 June 2012 / Published online: 20 July 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2012 Abstract Access to justice remains a major challenge in EU consumer law, which has become more pressing with growing cross-border purchases, negatively affecting the common market. Moreover, a recent surge in supranational mass damages cases has highlighted market failures and the need for collective procedures. Under the Lisbon Treaty, new opportunities have arisen to close this civil justice gap. This article analyzes how the wider competences of the EU on access to justice can facilitate consumer redress, by putting special emphasis on the issue of the affordability of litigation, which has been so far underexplored. This work argues that collective procedures, combined with coherent out-of-court mechanisms and funding schemes, are key elements of an effective consumer dispute resolution system. In particular, specific cases and financing models are assessed, which have the potential to foster judicial protection of consumers. Keywords Collective access to justice of consumers . Litigation funding . ADR . Lisbon Treaty The proliferation of cross-border exchanges and mass production has extended the role of collective litigation beyond the nation state. Recent market failures have been seen in multiple damages cases of shareholder losses, excessive telecommunication charges, and product liability (Hänsel and Micklitz 1994). This has indicated an urgent need for new, simple, fast, and cheap ways of enforcement. As a policy response, a growing number of Member States have recently incorporated collective redress mechanisms as a way of dealing with multi-party act