Briefing - Unfair Trading Practices in the Business-to-Business Food Supply Chain - PE 563.430 - Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Unfair trade practices imposed by the stronger party to a contract can have a profound impact on the functioning of the market, increasing costs and reducing revenues of the parties that experience them. This background paper reviews unfair trade practices that can appear on any side of the B2B (Business-to-Business ) transaction, in any sector of the market. Recently unfair trading practices have been of particular interest to the EU in relation to food supply chains. Briefing concludes that any consideration concerning possible future action in the area of unfair trading practices must consider a number of issues such as: whether or not legislative action is needed, and if so, what scope and form should it take. However, the key element of any action is to ensure its subsequent effective enforcement.