JOURNAL OF CONSUMER POLICY最新文献

The loss of jobs and the decline in real incomes caused by the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have affected consumers' ability to repay their debts. These have led to high ratios of non-performing loans (NPLs), which affect the stability of the financial industry and undermine economic recovery. The result has been a need for faster debt enforcement and a drastic increase in abusive informal debt collection practices (IDCPs). In the EU, the need to regulate and harmonize abusive IDCPs surfaced in 2018 in connection to the Proposal for a Directive on Credit Servicers, Credit Purchasers and the Recovery of Collateral (CSDP). The directive would enable banks to outsource the servicing of NPLs to a specialized debt collector, but it contained no protection rules against abusive IDCPs. In this article, the researcher critically assesses the need for harmonization of the legal framework concerning abusive IDCPs in the EU, mainly from the standpoint of the initial and current text of the CSDP. Where necessary, the researcher will refer to both historical and comparative law perspectives. The researcher focuses on the legal character of informal debt collection, its relation to financial services, and its potential sui generis character. After that, the researcher will address the arguments for and against establishing pan-EU sector-specific legislation dedicated to IDCPs. Next, the researcher discusses the constitutional authority of the EU to regulate abusive IDCPs. Finally, the researcher will examine the interaction of the CSDP with other consumer (financial) protection instruments to identify the best solution for harmonizing abusive IDCPs at the EU level. The researcher will juxtapose several dichotomies: general versus sector-specific, procedural versus substantive, minimum versus maximum harmonization, and hard versus soft regulation. In the conclusion, the researcher shall synthesize the core problems and suggest an approach.

The article seeks to establish, in a comprehensive manner, if and how abusive debt collection practices are regulated in the respondent EU Member States. Using empirical data gathered from consumer and supervisory agencies as well as debt collection associations in 26 EU Member States, it provides an insight into (a) the existence of a licencing regime for debt collectors; (b) the potential transboundary dimension of debt collection and its implications for the common market; (c) the types of abusive debt-collection practices encountered in the Member States; (d) the efficacy of self-regulation via Codes of Conduct; and (e) the potential traditional remedies available to consumer-debtors. The article concludes that the existence of different national models creates potential issues and discrepancies in the legal status and defences available to consumer-debtors across the EU, which ultimately affects the proper functioning of the single credit servicing market. The advocated solution is that of a harmonized sector-specific regulation of abusive debt collection practices at EU level.

In 2001, Indonesia established the Consumer Dispute Resolution Body (CDRB) based on the instruction of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) in 1999 to provide consumers protection in exercising their rights and to settle disputes quickly, simply, affordably, and professionally. Compared to the systems established by several countries that submit common law systems in which dispute-solving cases are terminated by the special courts called Small Claims Courts or Small Claims Tribunals, CDRB construction in Indonesia was quite vague. Although it uses arbitration terminology, the CDRB lacks an arbitration mechanism because, in practice, the body examines consumer disputes, working formally as a court. The root of this problem arose from the inconsistent regulation in the CPA. This article aims to review the CDRB construction problem compared to systems in other countries, to find recommendations for CPA amendments and discuss the future prospects. This study suggests two solutions: The first is the strict separation of litigation and non-litigation dispute resolution. The second is the formation of both online litigation and non-litigation systems. With these systems, the CDRB becomes a substitute institution, meaning that this body is the only system for small claim resolution for disputing parties.