Harmonization of the protection against misleading commercial practices: ongoing divergences in Central European countries

Abstract

Research background: Modern European integration focuses on competition in the internal single market, embracing both competitiveness and consumer protection, and it aims at full harmonization in this arena. The hallmark, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive from 2005, aims to overcome diverse social, political, legal and economic traditions. Is the implied protection against misleading practices an opportunity or a threat for Central European Regions?
 Purpose of the article: The primary purpose is to comparatively describe and critically assess the transposed legal frameworks. The secondary purpose is to study and evaluate their coherence in the light of the case law and their impact in Central Europe, in particular whether it represents an opportunity or a threat for the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, i.e. boosting competitiveness and innovation along with consumer welfare.
 Methods: The cross-disciplinary and multi-jurisdictional nature of this paper, and its dual purposes, implies the use of Meta-Analysis, of various interpretation techniques suitable for legal texts and judicial decisions, of the critical comparison and of a holistic assessment of approaches and impacts. Legislation and case law are explored and the yielded knowledge and data are confronted with a field search and case studies. The dominating qualitative research and data are complemented by the quantitative research and data.
 Findings & Value added: For over one decade, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive has required full harmonization of the protection against, among other items, misleading commercial practices, by legislatures and judges in the EU. The exploration pursuant to the two purposes suggests that this ambitious legislative and case law project entails a number of transposition approaches with varying levels of coherence, importance and impacts on the competitiveness and innovation of business and consumer welfare in Central Europe. Therefore, full harmonization should be either readjusted or relaxed.

CSR Statements in International and Czech Luxury Fashion Industry at the Onset and during the COVID-19 Pandemic—Slowing Down the Fast Fashion Business?

“…Consequently, the EU has newly set a legal duty for large public-interest entities with more than 500 employees to include, in the management report, a non-financial statement linked to CSR [46], see Directive 2013/34/EU, Directive (EU) 2017/1132 and Regulation 2015/884 as updated [15]. The EU motto "united in diversity" neatly fits in with the perception of CSR as a dialogue and interaction between businesses, corporations, and their stakeholders [47] including customers [43] and is reflected by EU policies [48,49], which, so far, lead to only one legal duty regarding CSR for only some subjects-to report about it. Thusly, so far, it is up to the discretion of the businesses how much they will engage with CSR and its six categories, how they use it as competition leverage [44], and inform about it [10].…”

“…Both the concept of sustainability and CSR are outcomes of the belief that businesses, especially large global companies, as powerful economic, social and political actors, should participate in the multi-stakeholder model and be pro-sustainability [40,41]. CSR means the responsibility towards all stakeholders, that is, towards the entire society, while addressing all three sustainability pillars [38] and even fair competition [42][43][44]. Responsibility, as such, has Latin roots, see respondere, and means that someone has to answer for the effects caused by him to an authority and this authority evaluates its damages [1].…”

“…In reaction to that, the European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, made a set of crucial statements concerning COVID-19 and its aftermath, while emphasizing that "we must not hold on to yesterday s economy as we rebuild" [76], "we have to push for investment and reformand we have to strengthen our economies by focusing on our common priorities, like the European Green Deal, digitalization and resilience" [77] and that it is necessary to support Europe in its transition to "a climate-neutralized and resilient economy" [78]. Consequently, conventional competition concerns [43], the drive for technological and other potentialities [16,79] along with unconventional sustainability via CSR [80], and the employment of the multi-stakeholder model [81] acquired an additional function [82,83]. That is, in short, to use the CSR drive not only to support smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth but also to make it the instrument addressing the pandemic COVID-19 as not a threat but rather as an opportunity.…”

The CSR Perception of Front-line Employees of Luxury Fashion Businesses

“…For the EU and EU member states, sustainability in the large sense represents a current multi-stakeholder relationship of virtually all members of society and even the society itself. Although the resulting CSR is only partially covered by mandatory EU law provisions and national law provisions (MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019b), the CSR that came of this represents a transparent dialogue and interaction between businesses and other stakeholders which should be materialized, among others, by publicly available financial reporting and non-financial reporting, i.e. CSR reporting (MacGregor Pelikánová, R. & MacGregor, 2017).…”

The EU Puzzling CSR Regime and the Confused Perception by Ambassadors of Luxury Fashion Businesses: A Case Study from Pařížská

“…They have been confronted with positive as well as negative influences (MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019a;Petera et al, 2019). Indeed, a myriad of meta-analytic, horizontal and vertical studies have shown (i) that human's concern for others has rather decreased during the last decades (Konrath, 2011;MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019b) and (ii) that more altruism and sustainability awareness and commitment is exhibited by responsible people, i.e. the positive attitude towards CSR often co-relates with the positive attitude to the responsibility duty (Peterson, 1983).…”