The Information Paradigm in EU Consumer Law in Numbers

The information paradigm resulting from EU consumer law has multiple flaws when it comes to consumer protection. Academics have suggested numerous solutions to these shortcomings, including the abandonment of mandated disclosure. A part of the literature claims or implies that the information paradigm needs to be revised or replaced in order to sufficiently address its shortcomings. Nevertheless, both the EU and the stakeholders seem interested in keeping pre-contractual information duties as a regulatory mechanism. Considering this, the departure point of any discussion on the improvement of the EU law-based information paradigm is the existing information duties. This step is, however, often disregarded in the literature. When it is not disregarded, the description of the information paradigm is based on examples of specific provisions in specific Directives in specific areas. This paints a partial picture of the information paradigm. This study intends to characterize the information paradigm from a broader, more comprehensive perspective. In that sense, this dataset includes approximately 1500 observations (pre-contractual duties to inform) that were coded according to 8 variables. The goal of the study was to identify the main traits and conceptual limits of the information paradigm in EU consumer law. This dataset is the result of a study of pre-contractual duties to inform in EU consumer law, in the context of my PhD research.