Cross-border consumer conflicts — A French-German experience
The paper informs about and analyses the interim results of a joint initiative of European consumer associations to combat misleading marketing practices originating in Germany and directed towards French consumers. The traditional enforcement mechanisms have so far been unable to provide adequate remedies for cross-border complaints which will occur with more regularity the closer the internal market of the EC comes to completion. The author discusses strategies to take action against the tortfeasor in the country where the wrongful practices originate, rather than, as provided for by the traditional conflict rules, at the place where the injury occurs.ZusammenfassungDer Aufsatz berichtet und analysiert die Zwischenergebnisse einer gemeinsamen Initiative von europäischen Verbraucherorganisationen, die irreführende Wettbewerbspraktiken bekämpfen wollen, die ihren Ausgangspunkt in Deutschland haben und gegen französische Verbraucher gerichtet sind. Die herkömmlichen Rechtsdurchsetzungsmechanismen sind bislang ungeeignet, einen ausreichenden Rechtsschutz bei granzüberschreitenden Beschwerden zu gewährleisten, die mit der Vollendung des Binnenmarktes zunehmend um sich greifen. Der Autor diskutiert Strategien, um gegen den wettbewerbswidrig Handelnden im Verursachungstaat vorzugehen, d.h. dort, wo die Handlungen ihren Ursprung nehmen, und nicht erst dort, wie unter traditionellem internationalem Recht, wo sie ihre schädigenden Auswirkungen haben.
European Consumer Access to Justice Revisited
Part I. Setting the Stage: Access to Justice 2.0: 1. At the very outset 2. Access to justice 2.0: breaking it into pieces Part II. Procedural Law: The Traditional Pillar of Access to Justice 2.0: 3. A brief outline of the developments at the pan-EU level 4. Prime examples 5. Compensatory collective redress: the next step? 6. Where to go from here? Part III. Substantive Law: Complementing Access to Justice 2.0: 7. Widening the scope of the value-oriented justice discussion 8. Substantive consumer law-making in the course of time 9. Recent trends and developments 10. The common European sales law 11. Summarising comments on the defragmentation of substantive consumer laws in the context of the CRD and the CESL Part IV. Consumer Access to Justice 2.0: A Multidimensional Framework: 12. From the current state of consumer law to consumer access to justice 2.0 13. The justice debate and consumer legislation 14. (Responses to) counter-arguments to third-party intervention 15. Consumer empowerment 16. Lessons to be drawn.
Ceramic microwave antennas for mobile applications
Due to their medium to high permittivity values, ceramic microwave materials are attractive as building blocks for miniaturised antenna solutions. Further advantages are low dielectric losses and an excellent temperature stability of standard ceramic materials. Yet, the permittivity of the ceramic material also has a strong influence on the radiation efficiency and bandwidth of the antenna. This implies that in the design process a suitable compromise has to be found between the degree of miniaturisation on the one hand and the antenna efficiency and bandwidth on the other. We describe two approaches towards efficient miniaturised ceramic microwave antennas: the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with partial metallisation and the shorting post patch antenna. We focus on design steps taken to ensure both a high degree of miniaturisation and high values of the radiation efficiency, the choice of the ceramic material and the experimental performance of the antennas.