Deyan Draguiev[1]

The EU law inherently assumes that there is a significant imbalance in the relationship between commercial parties and consumers – due to lack of financial resources, information, opportunity to defend, etc. Therefore, various rules and regulations of EU aim at interfering with this imbalance and providing more options for consumers to assert their position. Nevertheless, the existence of legal means for protection of consumer rights does not necessarily imply that consumers will be able to assert them successfully. This is why there is a current trend for development of claim consolidation enterprises where a third party with requisite financial resources operate on a large scale and acquire consumer claims or represent large groups of consumers asserting such claims. Cartel damages claims under Directive 2014/104/EC and airline passenger claims under Regulation 261/2004 are examples of EU legislation which gives rise to such consumer claim consolidation operations.

[1] Attorney-at-law. Manager of legal department of international financial corporate group investing in claims. Until 2019 attorney-at-law at international law firm CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP. Member of Sofia Bar Association. Graduated in law from Sofia University and University of Manchester, UK. Member of Advisory board on publications of International Council for Commercial Arbitration. Editor for Europe at Kluwer Arbitration Blog. Member of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, London, UK. The article comprises only the views of the author and do not represent opinion of any organization he may be affiliated with.