Do Consumers and Businesses Need a New Architecture of Consumer Law? A Thought Provoking Impulse

Abstract

The evolution of German consumer law and the evolution of the German economy took place simultaneously. Although the birth of consumer law in Germany has generally been linked with the enactment of the Abzahlungsgesetz (Hire Purchase Act, hereafter AbzG) in 1894, it was intended as a measure to protect domestic workers only.1 It was not until the creation of ‘the Consumer Society’ after the Second World War that consumer law developed into a coherent body of law.2 The heyday of consumer law came in the 1970s and saw the arrival of broadly considered legal texts, the Gesetz zur Regelung des Rechts der Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen (German Act on General Terms and Conditions of Trade, henceforth AGBG),3 the Haustürwiderrufsgesetz (German Doorstep Selling Act, henceforth HTWG), the Arzneimittelgesetz (Medicinal Products Act, henceforth AMG) (as a reaction to the Thalidomide crisis), and finally the law regarding travel package holidays which was incorporated into the Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code, henceforth BGB).4

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