Laws to empower consumers don’t matter without effective enforcement routes. So a new consortium called Re-act led by Euroconsumers’ Italian member Altroconsumo will test out practical ways to right the wrongs and get compensation for consumers who’ve lost out in digital markets.

Altroconsumo will bring their extensive experience of leading collective consumer actions nationally and as a part of Euroconsumers’ pioneering approach to co-ordinating cross-border actions – against VW ‘dieselgate’ and Apple for unfair music streaming app fees in their appstore. 

Digital Services Act and Representative Actions Direction combine for consumer power

 The ‘Re-act’ pilot will focus on addressing unlawful practice by online platforms through two major European pieces of legislation: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Representative Actions Directive (RAD).

Firstly, the pilot will identify breaches of the newly implementing Digital Services Act (DSA) which sets out rules for many of the large companies consumers use every day like Amazon, TikTok, Google search and Facebook.

The DSA requires large online platforms to be transparent about how they moderate content, and deal with harmful or illegal content and goods, and how they protect vulnerable consumers.

Re-act will also look at how the Representative Actions Directive (RAD) can be leveraged to bring collective representative actions on behalf of consumers who have suffered harm when companies have failed to follow the rules of the DSA. 

This type of private enforcement action through the courts sit alongside public enforcement investigations, remedies and sanctions. Together, they can help power consumers to justice and fair treatment in the digital market. 

The consumer organisations in Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia are all qualified under the RAD to bring collective action on behalf of consumers.  The Re-act pilot will work as a team to learn how to do this in practice, and then share this vital learning with other EU organisations designated to bring actions. 

Re-act: how the project will put consumer digital rights into practice

Over two years (2025-2027) the project partners will: 

• • Cooperate with other EU consumer organisations including BEUC and Euroconsumers to identify potential infringements of the DSA
• • Carry out a legal and economic analysis of the infringement and an assessment of damages and harm to consumers 
• • Design a collective, representative action pilot case and train consumer organisations staff on how to launch and manage collective redress. This will draw on the past experience of Euroconsumers’ members, and the specific needs and legal structures of the different national members in the consortium
• • Work together to develop content and digital tools to engage people
• • Pull out lessons for how national and EU policy could better support successful public and private enforcement, and share learning across national governments and the European Commission

The ambition is to lay the groundwork for a business model based on access to justice as a service.  A service that builds the capacity of consumer organizations to share legal costs and knowledge and take joint action for collective redress, going beyond their current legal assistance offer.

Project consortium members:

• Altroconsumo, Italy
• Spoločnosť ochrany spotrebiteľov (SOS), Slovakia
• Latvian National Association for Consumer Protection – PIAA (Latvijas Pateretaju Interesu Aizstavibas Asociacija)
• Lithuanian Consumers Alliance (Vartotojų aljansas Lithuania)