Consumers’ right to withdraw from online contracts

In 2007 the European Commission adopted the Green paper on the Review of the Consumer Acquis, which launched a public consultation on possible improvements. The summary of responses demonstrated that there is a need to tighten-up and systemize the regulation of the right of withdrawal. Moreover, due to the potential of increased numbers of cross-border transactions that the common access to the Internet leads to, the importance of effective rights of withdrawal from online contracts was underlined. The process of the revision of consumer acquis resulted in three proposals on Consumer rights directive: from the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament. There were substantial differences among these three legislative initiatives as regards the level of harmonization and the scope of application of the future directive. In order a thorough research on the possible regulation was made, this work analyzes all three versions of proposals. Furthermore, in order practical implication on the possible legislative changes were provided, the work gives evaluation on the legislative tendencies from the perspective of German consumers contracting online.