Seminar Series on Consumer Protection Law in Europe and Singapore

Professor Geraint Howells shared his insights on “Private law harmonisation in Europe”

Assistant Professor Gary Low of SMU School of Law gave a critical examination of Singapore’s consumer law regime

The Centre for Cross-Border Commercial Law in Asia (CEBCLA), at the SMU School of Law (SOL), in partnership with the Singapore Academy of Law, recently conducted two seminars on the development of consumer protection law in Europe and Singapore. These seminars were part of CEBCLA’s seminar series which are intended to bring together leading academics and local practitioners to promote Singapore as the Asian legal service centre.

The first seminar titled “Private law harmonisation in Europe”, held on 18 March 2015 at SMU, was presented by Professor Geraint Howells, Chair of Commercial Law and Dean of the City University of Hong Kong School of Law, and chaired by Professor Yeo Tiong Min, Dean of SMU SOL. An internationally established scholar on consumer law, Professor Howells examined the latest efforts made by both academics and lawmakers to harmonise consumer and contract law within the European Union (EU). Analysing the difficulties of achieving the goals, Professor Howells critiqued, among other things, the differences of culture among member states and the path dependency of consumer protection groups encountered in the process of producing a harmonised private law regime at the EU level. The issues raised in Professor Howells’ presentation resonated particularly in Singapore’s contemporary legal scene. From amongst the faculty members, lawyers and in-house counsels, many seminar participants raised questions on what Singapore can learn from the harmonisation of private law in the EU, given Singapore’s ambition to play a key role in promoting legal integration and harmonisation in ASEAN.

Professor Howells and Assistant Professor Gary Low of SMU SOL co-presented the second seminar on “Consumer law: effective or a mere paper tiger?”, which was held the following day at the Singapore Supreme Court Building. This session was chaired by Mr Chester Toh, Head of Integrated Regulatory Practice at Rajah & Tann Asia, and was well attended by 35 lawyers, in-house counsels, policy-makers, academics and consumers. Professor Howells expounded on how to strike a fair balance between consumer and business when seeking to build a robust and effective consumer protection regime in Europe. In particular, he emphasised that not only consumers but also good traders are the main beneficiaries of a well-functioning consumer protection system.

Focusing on the Singapore context, Dr Low gave a critical overhaul of the Singaporean consumer protection regime. He spoke on topics from criminalisation of unfair trading practices to the need for an independent consumer enforcement agency, and experiential learning as a way to raise awareness of consumer law. Where salient, he drew on the experiences of Australia as well as Europe (particularly Scandinavia) to nuance the arguments raised and insights revealed.

The seminars ended with an engaging discussion between the participants and presenters, where some participants even offered suggestions to pay more attention towards tightening the local legislative framework on unfair trading practices, strengthening enforcement mechanisms, and easing consumer access to dispute resolution mechanisms. 

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