EU announces ODR platform

"...the European Commission unveiled today a package of legislative proposals to ensure that all EU consumers can solve their problems without going to court, regardless of the kind of product or service that the contractual dispute is about and regardless of where they bought it in the European single market (that is, at home or abroad). For consumers shopping online from another EU country, the Commission wants to create an EU-wide single online platform, which will allow to solve contractual disputes entirely online within 30 days.

Major announcement in Europe today

From the release:

The Regulation on Online Dispute Resolution will create a EU-wide online platform (‘ODR platform’) providing consumers and businesses with a single point of entry for resolving on-line the disputes concerning purchases made on-line in another EU-country. This single European point of entry will:

• automatically send the consumer’s complaint to the competent national ADR entity
• facilitate the resolution of the dispute within 30 days.

After the adoption, EU Member States will have 18 months to implement the ADR Directive. This means that quality out-of-court ADRs should be available everywhere in the EU in the second half of 2014.The single EU-wide platform for online dispute resolution will become fully operational six months after that deadline (i.e. in early 2015), as its operation requires the setting up and upgrading of out-of-court entities where needed."