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Consumer organizations in the Czech Republic specialising in consumer protection have noticed a new development in the field of marketing food supplements bearing health claims prohibited by EU law. Producers and distributors of food supplements that are sued for their illegal marketing practices prefer losing their case to withdrawing their foodstuffs from the market. At the same time, they make it impossible to refer preliminary questions to Luxembourg in order to obtain an interpretation on important points of law, such as the legality of supervisory activities carried out by state bodies in terms of its compliancewith EUlaw.
The European Union prohibited the use of misleading health claims in the advertising of foodstuffs by passing Regulation (EC) No. 1924/2006, which enables consumer organisations to sue those market players who breach the corresponding rules. The sued traders follow a very pragmatic approach. They are aware that they cannot win the case, yet they are not likely to agree to alternative dispute resolution and prefer losing the case instead of paying an out-of-court settlement and stopping their illegal behaviour on a voluntary basis.
The usual time for completing a lawsuit in the Czech Republic amounts to some two to six years. This...