Scope 

The Directive amends Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices (Unfair Commercial Practices Directive) and Directive 2011/83/EU on other consumer rights.

Relevance

The Directive is meant to promote the green transition and sustainability, and must be considered in conjunction with the proposal for a Green Claims Directive (COM(2023) 166). Implementation in Norway will likely result in an amendment of the Norwegian Cancellation Act, the Marketing Control Act, the Agreements Act, and the Norwegian Regulation on unfair commercial practices.

Key Obligations

The obligations are intended to ensure better information about sustainability and stronger protection against commercial practices that undermine sustainable consumption, such as deceptive environmental marketing (‘greenwashing’), premature product obsolescence, and unreliable and vague sustainability labelling. Additionally, producers must inform about the product’s durability on certain conditions. Producers must also inform consumers of how easily repairable the product is.

More specifically, the amendments to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive concern the following: amendments to Article 6 and 7 concerning misleading marketing based on a case-by-case assessment, and an amendment to Annex I concerning practices that are considered to be unfair at all times (the so-called “blacklist”).