Penalties and Redress

Enforcement

Article 29(1) of Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Electronic Communications Code – the EECC – provides that Member States shall lay down rules on penalties, including, where necessary, fines and non-criminal predetermined or periodic penalties, applicable to infringements of national provisions adopted pursuant to the EECC or of any binding decision adopted by the Commission, the national regulatory or other competent authority pursuant to the EECC, and shall take all measures necessary to ensure that they are implemented. Within the limits of national law, national regulatory and other competent authorities shall have the power to impose such penalties. The penalties provided for shall be appropriate, effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

As it is emphasised that the protected and well-informed End Users is a key enabler of competition and technological development, the enforcement mechanism should ensure the efficiency of the requirements, including those aimed at consumer protection in electronic communications.

Moreover, the BEREC Guidelines on the Implementation of the Open Internet Regulation – the BEREC Open Internet Guidelines – set out a variety of interventions that the National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) could make. These include requiring Internet Service Providers (ISP) to deal with any degradation of the Internet Access Service (IAS), requiring ISPs to cease or change problematic traffic management practices, requiring ISPs to stop providing Specialised Services unless sufficient capacity is made available for IAS; and imposing penalties on ISPs for infringements.

Alternative dispute resolution

According to Article 25(1) of the EECC, the Member States shall ensure that the NRAs or Other Competent Authority responsible for, or at least one independent body with proven expertise in, the application of Articles 102 to 107 and Article 115 of this Directive is listed as an alternative dispute resolution entity to resolve disputes between providers and consumers. The disputes concern those arising under Directive 2013/11/EU and relate to the performance of contracts.

Furthermore, Article 18 of Regulation (EU) 2022/612 of the European Parliament and of the Council on roaming on public mobile communications networks within the Union – the Roaming Regulation – establishes that in the event of an unresolved dispute involving a consumer or end-user and concerning an issue falling within the scope of this Regulation, the Member States shall ensure that the out-of-court dispute resolution procedures laid down in Article 25 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972 are available.

This option enables End Users to quickly resolve their problem with the operator free of charge and not to have to initiate lengthy and expensive court proceedings for disputes often of low monetary value.