Rights and Remedies Conference 2012
Third Conference organised by the Jean Monnet Chair funded
with support from the European Commission
RIGHTS AND REMEDIES FOR THE CONSUMER IN THE
EUROPEAN UNION
Friday 13th April 2012
Corinthia Hotel St George’s Bay, St Julians, Malta
8:15
Registration
8:45
Chairman’s introduction
Professor Eugène Buttigieg Jean Monnet Chair, Faculty of Laws, University of Malta
9:00
Shopping on online auction platforms: rights and remedies
Dr Christine Riefa Brunel Law School, Brunel University
9:45
Ways of improving consumer redress for unfair contract terms
Professor Chris Willett and Dr Youseph Farah School of Law, University of Essex
10:30 Coffee
11:00 Consumer remedies for faulty goods – the impossibility of balancing the interests of
consumers, traders and coherence of the law
Professor Christian Twigg-Flesner Law School, University of Hull
11:45 Commission proposal for a Common European Sales Law - benefits for consumers
Dr Mihaela Carpus-Carcea DG Justice, European Commission
12:30 Redress for consumers in respect of unfair commercial practices
Professor Geraint Howells School of Law, University of Manchester
13:15 Lunch
14:45 EU collective redress and consumer ADR
Professor Christopher Hodges Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford and
Erasmus Professor at Erasmus University, Rotterdam
15:30 Financial services and consumer protection
Prof Dr Udo Reifner University of Hamburg
16:15 Reviewing the protection of the tourist: passengers’ rights and package travel only
or a Tourist Services Directive?
Professor Dr Klaus Tonner University of Rostock, Germany and Judge at the
Oberlandesgericht Rostock
17:00 Chairman’s closing remarks
Registration Fee: €50 (standard)
€20 (full-time students)
•
Delegates will receive a free copy of the conference book and CD containing
all the conference papers that will be published in September 2012
•
Entities and law firms that register more than two paying delegates
(standard fee) for the conference will receive a free copy of the 2010 Rights
and Remedies Conference book ‘Enforcing One’s Rights Under EU Law’
(published May 2011) and will be entitled to a 50% discount on the price of
the 2011 Rights and Remedies Conference book ‘Rights and Remedies in a
Liberalised and Competitive Internal Market’ (to be published in April
2012)
Registration deadline: 9 April 2012
To register visit http://www.um.edu.mt/laws or contact Ms Elisa Attard or Mr
James Bonnici on 23402786/23403460 or email jm.conference@um.edu.mt for
further information.
Conference Organiser and Chairman
Professor Eugène Buttigieg is the holder of the Jean Monnet Chair of European Law with the
theme ‘Rights and Remedies in an Integrated European Market’ at the Faculty of Laws of the
University of Malta.
Panel of Speakers
Dr Mihaela Carpus-Carcea joined the European Commission in 2009 and has since worked in
the area of European Contract Law. She graduated from the Law School of the University Al. I.
Cuza in Romania, is a member of the Romanian Bar and has a PhD in European Union Law from
the University of Birmingham in the UK. She worked as barrister, teaching assistant and legal
researcher, and completed a traineeship in the Legal Service of the Council of the EU.
Dr Youseph Farah LLB (Hebrew University), LLM (Essex University), PhD (Essex University)
joined the School of Law of the University of Essex in 2005. He lectures on contract law,
international dispute resolution, and international commercial litigation. Dr Farah is also very
active in the field of business and human rights, where he has served as a resource person
advising NGOs, Parliaments, and the UK government on matters relating to business and human
rights, and in particular international investment law. Dr Farah is also a member of the Centre for
Human Rights at the University of Essex. He was twice a visiting Professor to Michigan State
University, and a visiting Professor to Lyon III. His research interests include international
investment law, common law, e-commerce, investment arbitration, international commercial
arbitration and international commercial litigation. His professional career outside of academia
includes advising firms on matters relating to international trade and commercial law.
Professor Christopher Hodges is Head of the CMS Research Programme on Civil Justice
Systems at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford; Erasmus Professor of the
Fundamentals of Private Law at Erasmus University, Rotterdam; and Life Member of Wolfson
College, Oxford. His research covers all available dispute resolution systems, with the aim of
devising an integrated civil justice model for European States. His books include Reform of Class
and Representative Actions in European Legal Systems: A New Approach to Collective Redress
in Europe (Hart, 2008), European Regulation of Consumer Product Safety (Oxford, 2005), MultiParty Actions (Oxford, 2001), and European Product Liability (1993). His PhD was on European
Consumer Product Regulation (King’s College, London, 2003). He has advised numerous
governments and enterprises on law and policy. He is coordinator of the pan-EU Civil Justice
Systems Project, which comprises scholars from across the EU, and co-coordinator with
Professor Deborah Hensler of Stanford University of the Global Class Actions Project. He
graduated from New College, Oxford in 1976 and worked for 28 years in major City of London
law firms, attracting a reputation whilst a partner in CMS Cameron McKenna (1990-2004) as one
of Europe’s leading experts in product regulation, product liability and class actions. He is a
member of the European Commission’s Expert Working Group on the Product Liability
Directive, the Academic Advisory Panel on consumer law of the UK Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills, and is a former Chair of the International Bar Association’s Committee on
product liability, unfair competition, advertising and consumer affairs. He is a Board Member of
the UK Research Integrity Office (2008-), and has a special interest in health systems. He was
Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (representing NHS community
pharmacists 2007-11), has chaired various Department of Health working groups, was Vice-Chair
of the Association of British Healthcare Industries (2004-8), and Chair of EUCOMED’s Legal
Affairs Committee (1995-2008).
Professor Geraint Howells is Professor of Commercial Law and Head of the Law School at
Manchester University. He is also a barrister at Gough Square Chambers, London. He has been
President of the International Association of Consumer Law. He has also taught at the
Universities of Hull, Keele, Liverpool, Sheffield and Lancaster in the United Kingdom and
overseas he has visited the Universities of Tennessee, Würzburg, Münster, Paris XI and Sydney.
He has written widely on consumer law issues. His books include Comparative Product Liability,
Consumer Product Safety, Consumer Protection Law, EC Consumer Law, Product Liability,
European Fair Trading Law, Handbook of Research on International Consumer Law and The
Tobacco Challenge. He has also written numerous articles and contributions to books. He has
been editor of the Consumer Law Journal, the Revue Européene de Droit de la Consommation,
Yearbook of Consumer Law, International Journal of Law and Management and European
Business Law Library and is currently editor of the markets and law series for Ashgate
publishers. His work often has an EU, international or comparative flavour. He is a member of
the Acquis Group and was a member of the European Consumer Law Group. He frequently acts
as consultant for organisations such as the European Commission, UK government and NGOs.
He has recently drafted a report for the UK government on ‘Modernising and Simplifying
Consumer Contract Law’.
Professor Dr Udo Reifner, born 1948, studied sociology and law in Berlin and Marburg
(Germany). He is Professor of Commercial Law at Hamburg University and Research Director of
the independent Institute for Financial Services e.V. He conducts research especially on credit
and insolvency law. Among his more than 200 publications on bank law, financial services,
consumer protection, European Contract Law, social banking, bank and insolvency law,
sociology of law, history of law and legal theory, his book titles include: The Money-Society
(2010); Payment Protection Insurance (2010); Regulation concerning Consumer
Overindebtedness in the EU (2010); Private Pension Schemes; Financial Literacy; MicroLending; Community Reinvestment (list of publications: www.iff-hamburg.de/media.php?id=2174)
Dr Christine Riefa is a Senior Lecturer specialising in consumer and information technology
law. She is an elected board member of the International Association of Consumer Law and coeditor of the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law, published by Springer. She was a
Fulbright-EU scholar-in-residence at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in the USA in 2010 and
conducted research on the protection of consumers-gamers in virtual environments such as
Second Life. Prior, the Brunel Research and Innovation Enterprise Fund financed some of her
research on online auctions which is the object of her forthcoming monograph (to be published by
Ashgate in 2012). Dr Riefa has acted as a consultant for a number of private firms and policy
makers in her field. She is currently working on a project funded by the European Commission
assessing the impact of Directive 2007/64/EC on payment services in the internal market and on
the application of Regulation 924/2009 on cross-border payments in the Community. In 2010 she
was advising CARICOM (the Caribbean Community) on policy matters concerning the
development of a legal framework to protect consumers in the Region engaging in electronic
commerce. She is regularly invited to speak at international conferences.
Professor Dr Klaus Tonner was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1947. After studying law in
Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, he was lecturer in law at the Hochschule für Wirtschaft und
Politik in Hamburg from 1972 to 1994. In 1980 he obtained his doctorate (Dr. jur.) from the
University of Hamburg. In 1991 he completed his Habilitation at the University of Bremen. In
1994 Prof Dr Tonner became the holder of the Jean Monnet Chair for Private Law and European
Law of the Law Faculty of the University of Rostock. He was Vice President of the Deutsche
Gesellschaft für Reiserecht (German Society for Travel Law). He is member of the board of the
International Forum of Tour and Travel Advocats (IFFTA) and co-editor of the legal journals
Verbraucher und Recht and Reiserecht aktuell. He has published on consumer law, in particular
on travel law. Main publications: Reiserecht in Europa (1992); Das Recht des Time-sharing
(1997); Der Reisevertrag (5th edn, 2007); Vertragsrecht – Kommentar (2010) (co-editor with
Armin Willingmann and Marina Tamm); Verbraucherrecht – Beratungshandbuch (2012) (coeditor with Marina Tamm).
Professor Christian Twigg-Flesner is Professor of Commercial Law and Convenor of the Trade
and Commercial Law Centre at the University of Hull in East Yorkshire, England, and an
Academic Fellow of the Inner Temple. He read law at the University of Sheffield and was
awarded his doctorate for research into the law on manufacturers’ guarantees by the same
University. Before joining Hull in 2004, he worked at the University of Sheffield and Nottingham
Trent University. He has written widely on consumer law and European Contract Law. His
publications include The Europeanisation of Contract Law (Routledge, 2008) and he was coeditor of the EC Consumer Law Compendium (Sellier, 2008; with Hans Schulte-Nölke and
Martin Ebers). His most recent book is A Cross-Border-Only Regulation for Consumer
Transactions in the EU (Springer, 2012). He is co-editor (Law) for the Journal of Consumer
Policy and a member of the Acquis Group. In addition to his scholarly work, he regularly assists
the UK Law Commission and the Department for Business with question of consumer law
reform.
Professor Chris Willett PhD is Professor of Commercial Law and Director of Postgraduate
Research, University of Essex. He teaches, researches, publishes and engages in legal policy
development and training in contract, consumer and commercial law. Within the consumer law
field, his special areas of interest are quality of goods and services; unfair terms and practices;
services of general interest; and consumer protection and contract law theory.