Requests to competent authorities
A general trend can be noted that after negative experiences with injunction actions, consumer protection organisations moved to making requests to the competent authorities, because, from the perspective of these organisations, it is a cheaper, easier and much quicker mechanism. The average time for such a procedure is no more than two months and consumer organisation are super-complaint institutions. Not just national Trade Inspectorates and Consumer Authorities have the obligation to respond to requests but also sector-specific authorities, such as Financial Surveillance, Telecommunication and Energy authorities. Even if not all authorities react in the same positive way to the complaints of a consumer organisation, the effects of a subsequent administrative procedure are very positive and can be a deterrent, due to its special features.
What makes this type of action so efficient is that the consumer protection organisation does not have to provide sufficient evidence to establish the burden of proof. In Slovakia, one condition is laid down for interim measures by the Slovak Trade Inspectorate, that the consumer organization must send the traders a “cease and desist notice” regarding their unlawful conduct. If the trader does not refrain from harming the collective interests of consumers within two weeks, the Trade Inspectorate may take further measures. The authority can also order, as an interim measure, the cessation of using abusive commercial practices or unfair contractual terms, which is also a similar measure to an injunction but much cheaper and quicker. The further reason that this procedure is more effective than the injunction – with the exception of the Polish injunction procedure, what is more similar to this administrative mechanism, is that the authority can impose fines against the trader when the procedure ends along with giving an infringement notice, though it should be added that the low value of the fines cannot have much deterrent effect on the market. The procedure is also more flexible, depending on the cooperation of the business or the seriousness of the violation, than an injunction.
The success of interim measures in stopping violations of collective consumer interest almost immediately is very remarkable, although public authority decisions cannot have the same impact as court rulings. The one thing missing with regard to interim measures is that they do not bring any compensation to harmed consumers, though follow-on compensation could easily be linked to the administrative procedure.