THE PROVISION OF SERVICES IN THE EU INTERNAL MARKET VIA COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY PLATFORMS AND PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS: ACTORS, OBLIGATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT

Abstract

The objective of this article is to present the EU rules regarding the protection of consumers’ rights in the context of the provision of services in the EU internal market with the intermediation of collaborative economy platforms. The first approach to collaborative economy platforms entering the EU internal market focused on specific challenges posed by the triangular configuration of economic relationships of actors involved in the provision of services via such platforms (European Commission communication of 2016). This sector-specific approach of reflection shifted soon afterwards to a more general and overarching approach to all online platforms and even more general – to providers of information society services. After almost fifteen years of the presence of collaborative economy platforms in the EU internal market, it seems important to present the synthesis of this evolution of the EU approach and the resulting EU regulatory scheme. As a starting point, the article takes the challenges identified by academia and the EU institutions concerning the protection of consumers’ rights in contracts concluded with the intermediary of collaborative economy platforms, including: the legal classification of the actors involved in collaborative economy platforms as ‘consumers’ and ‘traders’, terms which are crucial for the application of the EU rules on consumer protection; the obligations of such platforms and the providers of underlying services in their relations with consumers; the division of liability between the collaborative economy platform and the provider of the underlying service in their relations with the consumer; and, last but not least, the role of collaborative economy platforms in enforcing the obligations of underlying service providers. These issues are presented with due account of the evolution of EU law since collaborative economy platforms appeared in the EU internal market. The article starts with a short presentation of collaborative economy platforms in the EU internal market and the challenges this posed for the application of EU law at the time. Then, the article investigates the EU law as it stands at present regarding the actors in the collaborative economy model from the traditional perspective in EU consumer law, distinguishing between a ‘consumer’ and a ‘trader’, and the obligations of collaborative economy platforms and providers of the underlying services in their relations with consumers. The final part scrutinises the relations between collaborative economy platforms and providers of the underlying services in terms of enforcement.