Consumer Protection Laws
The member states still have to confirm the law in the Council of Europe, but in the light of the facts, this may only be a matter of formalism. In the future, an EU-wide warning system should alert national authorities to suspicious companies so that they can be controlled even better. In addition, they should be allowed to impose fines on fraudulent behavior and have the power to ask domain registrars and financial institutions for information about online retailers.
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How the law is then implemented in practice, is yet to be resolved. Especially the different national legal standards on penalties offer a potential for conflict in the future. The text of the law does not specify this uniformly and refers to the application of existing national rules. This could work in the end as in the case of fines for road traffic offenses on foreign roads. Some EU countries are already working closely together and are penalizing the partner countries. It remains to be seen, however, how a website shutdown against online fraudsters operating in the EU can be enforced. It can be assumed that such companies then simply set up their servers in other EU countries.
