The main piece of legislation in Greece on Consumer Protection is the Law 2251/1994, which in large part implements European Union rules into the Greek legal order on a wide area of issues; general terms of contracts, regulations for liability of producers for defective products, unfair commercial practices, class actions to name a few. Nevertheless, the Law 2251/1994 is not restricted to a mere transposition of European Union legislation, but it furthermore enacts a strong line of tradition of Greek case law which has successfully provided solutions on consumer protection issues arisen in practice on the basis of the Greek Civil Code, despite the lack of specific legislation on the matter at the time.
Albeit not a code, the Law 2251/1994 establishes in a coherent and structured manner a complete system of consumer protection; Article 1 provides the general part which lays down the general principles to be considered in consumer protection policy and stipulates the meanings of the central notions of “consumer” and “supplier”. The First Part of Law 2251/1994 (art. 2 to 9) includes provisions of substantive law and consists the “individual” consumer law, while the Second Part (art. 10 to 13) that follows, regulates procedural and organizational matters and comprises the “collective” consumer law.
