The Defective Transposition Of Directive 29/2005/EC On Unfair Trade Practices To Spanish Law

Abstract

Directive 29/2005/EC aims at the approximation of the regulations of Member States as regards unfair trade practices, including unlawful advertising. The transposition of this Directive to the Spanish legal system was made by means of 29/2009 Act. This Act reformed a number of laws including the Unfair Competition Act and the Consolidated Text of the General Act for the Defence of Consumers and Users. The classification of conduct that is forbidden in consumer Law, as regards unfair trade practices, is made directly by the state legislative, based on its exclusive responsibility regulating Commercial Law, and specifically, through the Unfair Competition Act, to which the whole of the CTGADCU (Consolidated Text of the General Act for the Defence of Consumers and Users) refers. The reasoning behind this option of the legislative is clear: to prevent the Autonomous Regions from enforcing regulatory control over the development of the protection of consumers and users. Nevertheless, the complexity of the system for the transposition of the Directive by 29/2009 Act gives rise to truly paradoxical situations: the detailed analysis of inconsistencies involved in the transposition method used for the Directive is the main focus of this work.