Alternative Dispute Resolution
The Team are recognised as leading experts in Consumer ADR in Europe, producing influential ground-breaking research and being much in demand to advise governments, ombudsmen, regulators, and consumer and business groups on developing policy.
CONSUMER ADR IN EUROPE
The first comprehensive compilation on national Consumer ADR (CDR) landscapes and how individual mechanisms worked in 10 EU Member States was produced and published in 2012:
C Hodges, I Benöhr and N Creutzfeldt-Banda, Consumer ADR in Europe Hart Publishing. The following extracts from that book are relevant to policy issues:
- Proposed new Essential Requirements and key performance Indicators
- A Model for a National Consumer ADR Architecture
- Data on the Costs of Consumer ADR Schemes
For more information on the book, please click here.
Research has continued on CDR in further Member States, and into how the EU Directive 2013/11/EU on consumer ADR has been implemented, and a second volume will be published in 2017. A sequence of book chapters and articles have been produced, notably:
C Hodges, ‘Consumer Ombudsmen: Better regulation and dispute resolution’ (2014) ERA Forum, Volume 15, Issue 4, 593-608; (2015) DOI: 10.1007/s12027-014-0366-8of [translations of extracts from that article in German, Italian and Spanish]
C Hodges, "Consumer Redress: Implementing the Vision" from P Cortes, The New Regulatory Framework for Consumer Dispute Resolution. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016).
C Hodges and A Stadler (eds), Resolving Mass Disputes: ADR and Settlement of Mass Claims (Edward Elgar, 2013).
C Hodges, ‘New Modes of Redress for Consumers: ADR and Regulation’ in S Camarra Lapuente (ed), La Revisión de las Normas Europeas y Nacionales de Proteccción de los Consumidores (CIVITAS and Thomson Reuters, 2012)
C Hodges, ‘New Modes of Redress for Consumers; ADR and Regulation’ in E Buttigieg (ed), Rights and Remedies for the Consumer in the European Union (Malta: Guttenberg Press and University of Malta, 2012).
C Hodges, ‘Consumer Redress: Ideology and Empiricism’ in K Purnhagen and P Rott (eds), Varieties of European Economic Law and Regulation. Festschrift for Hans Micklitz, (Springer, 2014).
C Hodges, ‘Consumer ADR and Appeals’ in A Uzelac and CH van Rhee (eds), Nobody’s Perfect. Essays on Appeals and Other Methods of Recourse against Judicial Decisions in Civil Matters (intersentia, 2014).
C Hodges, ‘Unlocking Justice and Markets: The Promise of Consumer ADR’ in J Zekoll, M Bälz and I Amelung (ed), Dispute Resolution: Alternatives to Formalization – Formalization of Alternatives? (Brill, 2014).
C Hodges, ‘Delivering Redress through Alternative Dispute Resolution and Regulation’ in WH van Boom and G Wagner (eds), Mass Torts in Europe: Cases and Reflections (De Gruyter, 2014)
C Hodges, ‘The Consumer as Regulator’ in Dorota Leczykiewicz and Stephen Weatherill (eds), The Images of the Consumer in EU Law: Legislation, Free Movement and Competition Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2016)
C Hodges and N Creutzfeldt, ‘Transformations in Public and Private Enforcement’ in H-W Micklitz and A Wechsler (eds), The Transformation of Enforcement (Hart, 2016)
C Hodges, ‘Consumer Redress: Implementing the Vision’ in P Cortes, The New Regulatory Framework for Consumer Dispute Resolution. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016).
C Hodges, ‘Current discussions on consumer redress: collective redress and ADR’ ERA Forum: Volume 13, Issue 1 (2012), 11-33, also DOI 10.1007/s12027-011-0245-5 (May 2012)
C Hodges, I Benöhr & N Creutzfeldt-Banda, ‘Consumer-to-business dispute resolution: the Power of CADR’ ERA Forum (2012) 13:199–225; DOI 10.1007/s12027-012-0263-y
C Hodges, ‘Consumer ADR in Europe’ Zeitschrift für Konfliktmanagement 6/2012, 195-197
C Hodges, 'New Modes of Redress for Consumers and Competition Law, (2012) 11/12 Revista de Concorrência e Regulação 227-250
N Creutzfeldt and C Hodges, ‘Consumer Dispute Resolution (CDR) in Europe’ Nederlands-Vlaams Tijdschrift voor Mediation en Conflictmanagement (Dutch-Flemish Review for Mediation and Conflict Management) (2014) 2,
29-43.
C Hodges ‘New EU Frameworks for Consumer Complaints: Time for an Air Ombudsman?’ [2014] Travel Law Quarterly 192-201
C Hodges, ‘Consumer Ombudsmen: Better regulation and dispute resolution’ (2014) ERA Forum, Volume 15, Issue 4, 593-608; (2015) DOI: 10.1007/s12027-014-0366-8of
C Hodges, ‘Mass Collective Redress: Consumer ADR and Regulatory Techniques’ (2015) 23 European Review of Private Law 829-874
C Hodges, ‘Neue Ansätze grfragt’, Bank und Markt, 12 December 2015, 40
C Hodges, ‘Verbraucher-Ombudsstellen: Besserere Regulierung und Beilegung von Streitigkeiten’ (2015) 6 Zeitschrift für das Privatrecht der Europäischen Union 263-272.
ADR IN UK
We are constantly involved in advising on the design of Ombudsman and Dispute Resolution schemes in UK and many other countries.
In 2017, we were asked to advise the department for Culture, Media and Sport on the design of a possible regulatory and ombudsman system for sport.
Regulation and Complaints in the Property and Letting Sector
Prof Hodges’ 2017 Response to Call for Evidence by the Department for Communities and Local Government on ‘Protecting consumers in the letting and managing agent market’ is here. It argues that the sector should adopt a number of best practice approaches that apply in other sectors for regulation and dispute resolution, including the models of ‘regulated self-assurance’, ‘Ethical Business Practice’, and a single Property Ombudsman.
2018 Consumer Green Paper
Professor Hodges was asked to give a seminar to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in early 2018 before consultation on the Consumer Green Paper Modernising consumer markets; attached is his Response to the Consultation. He argues that
The ADR landscape should be unified around a single national website providing consumer information and links to sectoral ombudsmen
ADR schemes should all be based on the Ombudsman model
There should be a small number of sectoral Ombudsmen, who are linked together
The consumer regulatory landscape should also be revised and simplified, to improve performance and response
Major improvements in consumer protection and market vibrancy can be achieved if Ombudsmen and regulatory authorities work closely together.
ADR AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Chris Hodges speaks at United Nations Commission for Human Rights on non-judicial remedies discussion. UNCHR held a Chatham House meeting of experts in Geneva on 19 and 20 January 2017 on Accountability and Remedy Project II, dealing with non-judicial remedies. This involved around 20 governmental, business, labour and NGO, academic and other experts on scoping state-based non-judicial mechanisms relevant for the respect by business enterprises for human rights. Chris Hodges was the only European academic invited, and suggested ideas on an international ombudsman-type mechanism for human rights.