19 April 2022: The European Commission launched early April 2022 a public consultation “Resolving consumer disputes out of court (report)” to identify the main challenges to ADR and ODR at national and EU level and inform possible future reflections on how to ensure a better uptake of these tools to resolve low-value consumer disputes out of court. Feedback is open until 27 June 2022.

Enforcement of consumer law is a top priority for the European Commission because it ensures the smooth functioning of the Single Market both for consumers and traders. To this extent, ADR is an appropriate out-of-court mechanism for low-value disputes, which account for the vast majority of consumer disputes. 

The EU legal framework spelt out in the ADR Directive 2013/11 requires Member States to put in place fair, accessible and affordable ADR systems covering all consumer markets.
Furthermore, the Commission is providing an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) System in accordance with the provisions of the ODR Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 which enables e-shoppers to seek the agreement of traders to use and resolve their disputes using an ADR procedure.

The Commission has to evaluate the functioning of the above-mentioned systems and publish two reports in 2023:
• the application report of the CPC Regulation in accordance with Article 40 of the said Regulation; and
• a joint ADR/ODR application report in accordance with Article 26 of the ADR directive and Article 21 of the ODR regulation.
The feedback received will feed into the analysis of these two reports.

This initiative may be linked to air passenger rights, as was the case in the Uk Department for Transport’s open consultation on passenger’s rights. Indeed, the Uk DfT proposes to mandate ADR for all airlines flying to and from the UK. Therefore, ADRs could be part of the future public consultation to revise the EU261.