Wine Law

7 efficient approach would involve informing customers about the different characteristics of products 16 . The ECJ also elaborated a specific notion of the customer as “reasonably circumspect” 17 : when presented with a specific marketing or advertising information, if a normal customer is not confused when exercising common sense, then any (slightly) misleading information is not unlawful per se . Essentially, if the customer has a right to be informed, then it is also his or her duty to protect himself or herself 18 , be justly circumspect and examine all available information with due diligence. Nonetheless, such a principle must be put in context: the specific type of good or service must be taken into consideration since it may have an impact on the level of attention required from a consumer 19 , and stricter rules apply when a consumer may be misled on something that could pose a risk to his or her health 20 . The more important is that the ECJ is well aware that including all ingredients in labels is not in itself a solution as long as consumers may be misled by incomprehensible information 21 . The Teekanne decision, where such an assumption was made, has often been heralded as a turning point in the jurisprudence of the Court, which finally takes the findings of behavioural economics into consideration 22 . The Court’s stance must be out, in the context of the general law on food labelling set forth by Regulation 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to customers, whose general objective is to “ pursue a high level of protection of consumers’ health and interests by providing a basis for final consumers to make informed choices and to make safe use of food, with particular regard to health, economic, environmental, social and ethical considerations ” (Art. 3). From the European regulator’s perspective, this is 16 J. U. F RANCK & K. P URNHAGEN , Homo Oeconomicus, Behavioral Sciences and Economic Regulation: On the Concept of Man in Internal Market Regulation and its Normative Basis , in Law and Economics in Europe: Foundations and Applications, ed. by K. Mathis, Berlin, 2013. 17 ECJ C 470/93 (Mars). 18 R. S CHULZE , H. S CHULTE -N ÖLKE , & J. J ONES , A Casebook on European Consumer Law , Oxford, 2002. 19 ECJ C 342/97. 20 ECJ C 200/98. 21 ECJ C 361/15. 22 H. S CHEBESTA % K. P URNHAGEN , The Behaviour of the Average Consumer: A Little Less Normativity and a Little More Reality in the Court’s Case Law? Reflections on Teekanne , in European Law Review, 2016.