Postgraduate Module Descriptor

LAWM089: Consumer Protection

This module descriptor refers to the 2019/0 academic year.

Module Aims

The module aims to provide a critical understanding of the goals and instruments of Consumer law, the emergence (and the tensions) of this ‘europeanised’ regime, an overview of the realignment initiatives in this area and a deeper understanding of the enforcement issues (public and private as well as resort to ADR and ODR). The module aims to enable students to understand, assess and critically address the issues at stake in this area.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here - you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. demonstrate deep, systematic and critical understanding of the role, aims and underlying principles of Consumer law; 2. demonstrate detailed knowledge and understanding of the goals and instruments of Consumer law; 3. identify, explain, assess and analyse issues arising in the areas of Consumer law and identify and apply relevant legal rules and theories to those issues.
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. demonstrate a high level of ability in selecting, integrating and presenting coherently and reflectively, relevant law and legal/theoretical arguments; 5. demonstrate a high level of ability in integrating and assessing information from a wide variety of primary and secondary legal sources, using this to produce reasoned arguments and analysis in relation to legal issues.
Personal and Key Skills	6. demonstrate effective, confident and autonomous ability to manage relevant learning resources/ information/ learning strategies and to develop own reasoned arguments and opinions; and 7. communicate and engage in debate effectively and accurately, orally and in writing, in a manner appropriate to the discipline and context.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module's precise content may vary, it is envisaged that the syllabus will include all/some of the following topics, which will be covered in this order:

1) Introduction, Consumer law as an area of shared competence;

2) Phenomenon of Europeanised consumer protection;

3) Goals and instruments of Consumer law;

4) Consumer definitions in UK and EU law: the ‘pluriform’ consumer;

5) Europeanisation: Exclusion Clauses;

6) Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999;

7) Realignment initiatives: domestic and EU reform

8) Draft Common Frame of Reference, Consumer Rights Directive 2011, Common European Sales Law, UK Consumer Rights Bill 2014;

9) Enforcement Issues: collective redress, public enforcement, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR).

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
30	270	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	30	10 x 3 hour lectures.
Guided independent study	150	Preparation for seminars
Guided independent study	120	Preparation and writing of summative essay assessment

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

See in particular the Web pages of the EU Commission on: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/index_en.htm

Case law of the European Court of Justice available at: http://curia.eu

Other Learning Resources

Westlaw, Lexis, Eurlex