Legal regulation for sale of goods and supply digital content in EU – analysis of novelties of new EU directives

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of new legislative instruments of the European Union in the field of unification of European contract law, namely: Directive 2019/771 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods and Directive 2019/770 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services of 20 May 2019. Considerable attention is paid to the study of the novelties of these legal acts, including: determining the compliance of goods, digital content and digital services with the terms of the contract, researching and establishing the criteria for such compliance, and identifying additional information obligations of the seller and supplier of digital content, digital services and goods with digital elements. Particular attention is focused on the seller’s (supplier’s) obligations to periodically update the buyer’s (recipient’s) software in order to ensure the functioning of digital content (goods with digital elements) throughout the entire term of the contract, in accordance with its terms. The authors analyze the presumption of non-compliance of goods with the terms of the contract and prove that the burden of proof of compliance of the transferred goods with the terms of the contract rests with the seller (supplier). The article pays special attention to the issues of personal data protection, monetization of personal data of the buyer (recipient) of digital content and digital services. The authors analyze the ways of protecting the violated rights of the buyer (recipient), and study the environmental friendliness of the legal provisions of the new directives in the field of restoration of the violated rights of the buyer in case of failure to transfer goods, goods with digital elements, digital content, or transfer of goods that do not comply with the terms of the contract. The authors conclude that, given the problems and prospects for the development of the circular economy, and with a view to determining the disproportionality of the remedy chosen by the buyer, it is advisable to enshrine in the legislation on sale and purchase the requirement to take into account the impact of this remedy on the environment.

Keywords

• digital content
• sale of goods
• supply of digital content
• conformity of goods
• environmental friendliness of legislation