Collective Commentary about the New Package Travel Directive

ARTICLE 12 | FRANCESCO TORCHIA 285 Code, which regulates the case of “misleading omissions”. In fact, the aim pursued by the EU legislator is to include within legitimately reprehensible behaviours all those concerning the consumers/users interests, to achieve an efficient system of services or supplies that is able to meet an established programme plan. Finally, it is also important to recall the 06/26/2013 pronouncement, num. 24422, whereby the Competition and Market Authority classified as unfair commercial practices some behaviours carried out by a known cruise company. These behaviours were considered relevant from the information omission standpoint, taking into account that there is a unitary relationship between the disputed conduct that is attributable to a singular commercial strategy, implemented by the shipping company to advertise and sell their cruises online. Specifically, these conducts are the following: 1. the spread of obscure and incomplete information regarding the final price of cruise vacations, without any precise amount to give an honest and immediate perception to consumers about the total cost of the cruise services offered. In fact, additional costs and additional charges were hidden, such as: registration fees, service fees, exact amounts of mandatory insurance coverage, as well as any change in the cruise price as a result of the fuel costs increase; 2. the spread of contradictory methods and obscure and distorted information regarding the execution of passengers’ contractual rights, such as the right of withdrawal, reimbursement and other tourist rights in case of cancellation of the vacation. However, as is clearly shown, the case sanctioned by the Guarantor Authority as an unlawful commercial practice is in all its elements (violation of the information obligations) perfectly in line with the case foreseen by the EU legislator as a lawsuit for contract resolution. 3. TOURIST WITHDRAWAL BY CONDITION CHANGE: PACKAGE TRAVEL CANCELLATION 2 Nowadays, the withdrawal cases recognized as the mandatory rights of a travel package purchaser are summarized in two groups: in the first group the theorists identify the case of withdrawal due to condition changes (price revision, 2 About withdraw see v. G. TASSONI, Risoluzione e recesso nel contratto di viaggio , in Recesso e risoluzione nei contratti , edited by G. DE NOVA, Milan, 1994, pag. 637, and C. ALVISI, Recesso e disdette turistiche , concerning tourism Directive, 2005, 3, 213.