Unionsrechtlicher Verbraucherschutz im österreichischen Zivilprozessrecht

This dissertation examines consumer protection under EU law in Austrian civil procedure. The CJEU requires national courts to consider EU consumer rights ex officio in civil proceedings. This obligation aims to counterbalance consumers’ structural disadvantages and ensure the effectiveness of substantive consumer protection laws. The Court’s case law is based on the principles of equivalence, effectiveness, and effective judicial protection. Its decisions concern various EU consumer protection directives, with a particular focus on the Unfair Terms Directive. The dissertation analyzes the CJEU’s rulings on procedural issues such as judicial investigative measures, the principle of party disposition, adversarial proceedings, potential consumer consent to infringements of consumer rights, evidentiary relief, the role of legal representation, and the principle of res judicata. From this analysis, general principles are derived and assessed for their compatibility with Austrian civil procedure law. The findings indicate that many EU requirements can be integrated smoothly. For instance, the legal consequences of unfair terms, active judicial case management, and the scope of the subject matter of a dispute can largely be interpreted in compliance with EU law. However, challenges arise from the requirement that courts must act ex officio regardless of whether consumers are legally represented and from the necessity that consumers must, in certain circumstances, be afforded a mechanism to challenge the res judicata effect of decisions. Additionally, reforms are needed in Austrian order-for-payment and appellate proceedings, whereas the rules on default judgments and the annulment of arbitral awards are largely in line with EU law.