UNFAIR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES
Application of the Directive regarding unfair commercial practices
• Not conditional on the presence of an external factor.
• Scope ratione materiae which extends to any commercial practice directly connected with the promotion, sale or supply of a product to consumers.
• As is evident from recital 6 in the preamble to that directive, only national legislation relating to unfair commercial practices which harm ‘only’ competitors’ economic interests or which relate to a transaction between traders is thus excluded from that scope.
Full harmonisation
• That stated, it should be borne in mind, next, that Directive 2005/29 fully harmonises at the Commu-nity level the rules relating to unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices. Accordingly, as Ar-ticle 4 thereof expressly provides, Member States may not adopt stricter rules than those provided for in the directive, even in order to achieve a higher level of consumer protection.
Prohibition in principle of commercial practices which make the participation in a lottery condi-tional on the purchase of goods runs counter to the content of Article 4 of Directive 2005/29
• In that regard, clearly, by establishing a prohibi-tion in principle of practices which make the participation of consumers in a lottery or prize competition conditional on the purchase of goods or use of services, national legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings does not meet the re-quirements of Directive 2005/29.
