Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

DENMARK | MARIE JULL SØRENSEN 755 In most other areas of consumer regulation, Denmark has a special liability rule for intermediaries. This intermediary rule has not been added to the Danish Package Travel Act but exists in the general consumer protection rules regarding unfair contracts, distance and off premises selling and sales. The Danish intermediary rule constitutes a part of the Danish consumer definition and is only relevant if the two main contracting parties are parties acting outside their trade or business 15 . The rule states that if two such parties enter into a contract through a professional intermediary, the contract between the two parties becomes a consumer contract. This means that a seller acting outside his trade or business will have to comply with all the requirements of a business as indicated in the consumer protection regulation. For the intermediary, the consequence of being under the intermediary rule is that the intermediary must comply with most pre-contractual information duties stated in the consumer protection legislation. The intermediary rule does not impose any contractual liability on the intermediary. If the intermediary fails to provide the required information, the intermediary can be sanctioned with a fine. The main requirement for the rule to apply is that the intermediary doesn’t just play the role of a billboard or a similarly passive agent. Some support regarding the main contract must be offered, such as a payment system, a standard contract and/or other. This is stated in the important ruling from the Danish Court of Sea and Commercial Trade in SH2009.N.0001.07 (QXL) from 18 June 2009 regarding an auction site 16 . This site was categorised as an intermediary in terms of the Danish intermediary rule. RIGHT OF WITHDRAWAL Denmark has chosen not to make use of the option in Article 12(5) of the new Directive to impose a 14 days right of withdrawal period in regard to off premises selling. In the preparatory work, the Ministry of Justice argued that the services related to package travel are different from goods where such a 15 See for more information on the Danish intermediary rule: SØRENSEN, M. J., Intermediary Platforms – The Contractual Legal Framework. Nordic Journal of Commercial Law, no 1, 2018 and SØRENSEN, M. J., ‘Uber – a business model in search of a new contractual legal frame’, Journal of European Commercial and Market Law , no 1, 2016, pp. 15 -19. 16 See also court ruling, U 2000.2559 Ø (Regional East Court). Here the Court was of the opinion (however, without stating on what ground), that a lawyer met the criteria of the intermediary rule when intermediating a sale of property between two peers.