According to European Commission statistics, one in three consumers in the EU have experienced trouble with purchasing online goods. However, only a quarter of them actually complained in the courts, mostly because they think that court proceedings are lengthy and complicated. Therefore, with the noble aim to make the life of EU consumers easier, the European Commission initiated the adoption of Directive 2013/11/EU on Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR Directive") and Regulation 524/2013/EU on Online Dispute Resolution ("ODR Regulation"). These new legal instruments are supposed to magically shift your purchasing experiences towards secure and comfortable journey.  But does this "magic" really exist?

The lack of useful ADR schemes in the EU Member States has been named as one of the reasons of depriving the successful flow of online cross-border trading. The main idea of the ADR Directive is to establish at least one ADR scheme, which will be there to serve the customers to solve the dispute with the traders. This is necessary as earlier attempts to solve problems of promoting a more efficient single European market (such as for example EU Mediation Directive or EU Small Claims Regulation) have not proven to be as successful as it was hoped.

Is there any guarantee that the ADR Directive or the ODR Regulation will boost the security among the customers and promote a self-service system without legal assistance? Are they the novelty or just another false way of flattening the same old way? This remains to be decided by the European consumers themselves...