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Abstract

Having been invited to this prestigious conference I first want to clarify what I want to talk about. The topic which has been assigned to me by the convenor in the framework of the GNLU Law and Economics Conference and which I readily accepted is a complex one because of the wealth of material both with regard to legislation and interpreting case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). I have – frequently with colleagues – written extensively on the subject matter, the last being a 400 p treatise on European Consumer Law.1 To make things somewhat easier for you, I have prepared an Annex I concerning first an overview of EU legislation and regulation, and an Annex II linking the philosophy and economics of EU consumer law to certain images of the consumer. Annex III is concerned with some findings on Indian consumer law which I prepared during two stays in India in 2013 and 2014, namely in New Delhi and in Bangalore in the context of a project managed by GIZ, the German development agency, with your Ministry of consumer affairs and where I had a chance to take interviews with academics, judges, consumer activists, and state officials. My findings were published in a German Festschrift2 and will also be available to the Indian reader. The structure of my paper will follow the Annexes. In a sort of overview, I will explain some of the specifics of EU consumer law – I will do that without going into any details so that we know what we are talking about (II). More extensive parts (III) will discuss the different and sometimes conflicting consumer images in EU law and propose a differentiated approach (IV) based on CJEU case law and referring to findings of recently quite popular behavioural economics. The last part (V) will come to some observations which I made during may work in India – you’re invited to discuss and even criticise them if you think my assessment is wrong. Due to time reasons I will present my findings about Indian consumer law only in an overview in the Annex but I will circulate my Festschrift paper to the participants of the conference.

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