Furnizarea şi conformitatea conţinutului digital sau serviciului digital

Rezumat

The application in the Member States of Directive (EU) 2019/770 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services, from 1 January 2022, requires an assessment of the novelties that this instrument brings to Romanian law. The investigation below aims to identify two concepts configured autonomously at European level, namely the provision and compliance of digital content and digital service. These two concepts will be analyzed comparatively from three perspectives: of complementary consumer law instruments [in particular, Directive (EU) 2019/771 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods, which is designed as a sister instrument, and the Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights], of the European legal tradition in this area (concerning previous legal instruments which deal with the two concepts) and, last but not least, of common private law (where we are particularly interested, for functional reasons, in the relationship with the contract law enshrined in the Civil Code). The purpose of this assessment is to determine to what extent the legal novelties brought to the landscape by this new instrument constitute a revolution or merely a necessary adaptation. The answer (only partially engaging and not necessarily relevant to a functional understanding of the Directive) depends on our confidence in the elasticity of common law to take on board (or adapt to) new concepts. The conclusion is that we are not dealing with a revolution, but with a necessary evolution, which is the equivalent of adapting the law to the demands of the digital market and cross border e commerce. Of course, for the time being, from the point of view of positive law, this adaptation is only of sectoral relevance and only concerns the situation of consumers. However, it is very likely that the legislative event under discussion will, as with other European instruments, provide a significant stimulus for an improved legal perspective also for non professional to consumer contracts.