Competition Buzz: Non-Compliance with Codes of Conduct as an Unfair Competition Practice

By: José Massaguer

The amendment of the Spanish Unfair Competition Law in 2009 introduced a new misleading action to the list of actions specifically defined and characterized as unfair competition: non-compliance with commitments contained in codes of conduct, which is now addressed in Section 5.2. This study first describes the background of this particular unfair competition practice, which is found in Directive 2005/29/EC, of 11 May 2005, concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Unfair Commercial Practices Directive), and then discusses the material implications of its inclusion among practices considered as misleading actions, according to which the mere infringement of a code of conduct does not constitute unfair competition.

(Original Document in Spanish)

Full Content: SSRN

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