How do we work?
What do we do?
Ius Omnibus intends to safeguard the rights ant interests of consumers who are citizens of European Union Member States or of third States residing in the European Union. The Association aims to protect all the rights conferred to them by the legal orders of the European Union and its Member States, including those arising from: Consumer Law, General Contractual Terms, Advertising Law, Competition Law, Law of Unfair Commercial Practices, Regulatory Law, Environmental Law and Personal Data Privacy Law.
We will direct our efforts, most of all, into the defense of these rights and interests through the promotion of legal actions aimed at obtaining the restoration of legality and/or the due compensation of consumers for damage caused by companies’ unlawful behaviour. In this regard, our efforts will be directed mainly at filling the gaps in consumer protection, as mentioned above, being complementary to, and not intended to replace, other crucial consumer protection mechanisms which already exist, such as mediation and consumer arbitration.
We will also pursue our goals through the participation in structures and processes of consultation with consumer protection associations, as well as through the exercise of the multiple rights that consumer law gives us and collaboration with public entities to promote improvements and developments in the legislative and regulatory framework.
Activities that Ius performs include:
- Participation in legislative processes and public consultations (eg ANACOM, Competition Authority, ERSE, Draft transposition of the Spanish Representation Shares Law);
- Participation in conferences, courses and training actions (eg The Nuts and Bolts of Mass Actions Conference 2023; AEFDUP’s Brief Course on Consumer Rights);
- Cooperation with regulatory bodies (eg ASAE, ANACOM, ERSE);
- Advising consumers with questions and complaints;
- Disclosure of news at European level (eg Ius website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn);
- Partnerships with academic entities to promote Consumer Law (eg Academic Association of the Faculty of Law of Lisbon);
- Donation of books related to consumer protection.
Furthermore, Ius Omnibus pursues legal actions in defense of consumer rights (see below and see Cases)
What is the process to identify new potential legal actions?
Ius Omnibus identifies new potential actions, mainly, through 3 ways:
- Identification of legal infringements (already declared by public authorities or not) by the staff of Ius Omnibus, based on surveillance of the markets through the media, online sources and Ius Omnibus’ own investigations;
- Complaints of legal infringements by consumers or companies;
- Proposals to promote actions to re-establish legality and to compensate consumers, presented by law firms, economic consultancy firms or others.
As for the complaints, Ius Omnibus invites all consumers and companies who are aware of the existence of consumer rights violations to contact Ius Omnibus and to provide us with all the information they have in this regard. Ius Omnibus will do everything, within its possibilities, to confirm the existence of the illegal behaviour and to act to put an end to it and, if applicable, to guarantee the compensation of the injured parties.
As for proposals to promote actions, Ius Omnibus invites all lawyers and other service providers to think of this association as a platform that they can use to defend consumers’ rights. Ius Omnibus will find, whenever possible, ways to remunerate the work required to defend these rights. In addition, Ius Omnibus is always open to any and all other ideas or projects, including collaboration with other NGOs and public or private entities, which contribute to the defense of consumer rights in the European Union.
How are Ius Omnibus legal actions selected?
The selection process is dependent on a careful and demanding analysis of the factual and legal aspects of each case by our members, lawyers and economists, divided into several stages and levels of control. Ius Omnibus will only pursue actions of manifest merit and with significant possibilities of success. Preference will be given to pursuing actions based on illegal practices already identified in decisions by European or national regulators (follow-on actions), but we will not fail to pursue stand-alone actions, or to add stand-alone components to follow-on actions, whenever there is sufficient evidence of the infringement. In any case, the selection of a case presupposes:
- Prior analysis and drafting of a reasoned proposal to be presented to the Board by specialist lawyers; and
- Discussion at a Board meeting.
In the case of actions whose pursuit is only possible by obtaining substantial funding, a phase of presentation of a reasoned proposal to litigation funders will follow, who will promote their own due diligence process, using independent lawyers and economists.
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