EU 소비자권리지침(Directive 2011/83/EU)이 영국 소비자법제에 미친 영향

Directive 2011/83/EU (hereinafter the Directive), a new Directive on consumers' right in the European Union (hereinafter EU), provides an important implication since it enhanced consumer protection in 28 EU member countries. The Directive, which is designed to provide consumers with more transparency and information for better consumer choice, is consistent with a long-term consumer policy in EU. The Directive was prepared in the sense that the current EU competition law does not sufficiently protect individual consumers. It seems that European courts had a position that competition law was not intended to directly protect the interest of consumers. In addition, the ultimate goal of the Directive is to lessen the gap of consumer protection among member countries. For the last three years since 2011 (when the Directive was adopted), the U.K. government, in order to transform the Directive into a domestic legal system, has stipulated numerous new rules and laws. Since the U.K. did not integrate rules but legislated separate rules, however, there remains a problem in the U.K. as to how to understand and apply separate rules. The U.K. expected that a successful transformation of the Directive into a domestic legal system would make U.K. consumers better off. In the U.K., however, the introduction of the Directive was not paid attention to very much due to Consumer Rights Act 2015. Just before the adoption of Consumer Rights Act 2015, authorities and the legislature in the U.K. discussed in depth the introduction of the Directive. In this respect, it is clear that the importance of consumer rights and protection was recognized in the U.K. In addition, the efforts that were made during this course became an important foundation for a more systemic legal system in the near future. In addition, the recent U.K. discussions can be considered when it comes to revising the Consumer Protection legal system in Korea.