Consumer Law Ready is a specialist training programme for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), helping them understand and comply with the latest EU and national consumer laws.

Consumer Law Ready is a project funded by the European Commission. Eurochambres, (The Chamber of commerce in the City of Brussels, Belgium), in a consortium with BEUC (the European Consumer Organisation), and SMEunited (the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), is running this training project.

Their respective members at a national level are also deeply involved to maximise the outreach to the business audience. The project started in January 2017 and is running until December 2022.

The project works at different levels:

At European level, Eurochambres and its partners, together with specialist trainers and legal experts, train one national trainer per country. These are known as “lead trainers”. 

Lead trainers will train 20 to 30 regional trainers in their own country on European and national consumer law. Regional trainers are then equipped to give training events to SMEs in their localities. Trainings are given in the language of the country of origin. 

Online learning resources allow busy entrepreneurs to learn all content online by reading documents, taking part in quizzes, watching videos and finally passing an e-test validated by a certificate.

The project is composed of five Modules:

• Pre-contractual information requirements (module 1)
• Right of withdrawal (module 2)
• Consumer rights and guarantees (module 3)
• Unfair commercial practices and contract terms (module 4)
• Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) (module 5)

The project covers mostly domestic contracts but includes a lot of indications on cross-border contracts.

The project covers both online and offline trade.

Consumer Law Ready is open to trainers, legal experts, and SMEs from all the 27 EU Member States. The material is also available for adaptation to Norway and Iceland.

There are two different areas on the platform: one for Trainers and experts and one for SMEs. Both areas provide each party with the necessary information and resources to meet their requirements.

Interested in hosting a training session for SMEs in your own locality? First you must attend a national “trainer's training” event given by appointed lead trainer in your country. 

To apply, visit the 'Trainer' section to see a schedule of "trainer's training" events taking place in your country. 

On completion of training, you will be equipped and authorised to prepare and run your own training for local SMEs. 

Your account on Consumer Law Ready will be upgraded and you will gain access to the suite of material that will help you to create and organise your training events.

Participants are selected based on several criteria: You will be contacted by our experts to inform you as to whether you can join a national “trainer's training” event.

Once you sign up to the course, our experts will provide you with guidelines and a checklist highlighting the next steps. Your profile will also be upgraded so that you have access to all Trainer project resources. 

This project is financed by a European funding so Consumer Law Ready training, content and promotional material is available free of charge to all trainers, national or local.

Local trainers may charge SMEs for their training sessions, however, they are encouraged to provide the training for as low a cost as possible.

Fees charged should cover organisational costs and the trainer’s time

Training times are set by national and local Trainers. Please log in and view the schedule.

For trainers, material to prepare the trainings is available online:

• Teaching material as the Modules and Power-Points presentations in your language and adapted to your national specificities
• Template documents such as participants’ lists, certificates or data protection forms
• Promotional tools (printable and editable leaflets and postcards, social media posts and online banners, pictures, etc)
• Online learning resources like videos, quizzes and an e-test that you can refer SMEs to
• These FAQs and a Forum where you can ask your questions and gain knowledge from experts and from your peers
• Only approved trainers (“CLR trainers”) have access to the material.

Consumer Law Ready can help you!

Each Module is written for a specific country and contains information on that country’s national law. You can access the Modules from all countries on the Module repository:

https://www.consumerlawready.eu/trainer/all-language-module-download-page 

If you want to access all online learning material (videos, quizzes), and learn about other people’s questions then you need to use another email address and create an additional account. For example, you are a French trader and want to do cross-border trade with Italy. You can learn about Italian legislation with Consumer Law Ready by finding the Modules for Italy on this page. Or you can go back to the homepage and register by clicking on “Italy”. Note that each national version is only provided in its own country language, so the resources and the website for Italy are only available in Italian.

To register, please complete our Sign Up page.

Certain information pieces are considered optional during sign up and may be provided at a later stage however, we do encourage you to provide all information at the beginning because it allows us to cater more accurately to your needs.

On completion of sign-up, you will receive an activation notification to the e-mail address provided. You will need to click the link in the email to gain full access to the website.

If you complete sign up but do not receive the activation e-mail, please contact info@consumerlawready.eu in English, Italian, Spanish or French.

If you have a technical problem with the website, please contact info@consumerlawready.eu in English, Spanish, Italian or French.

You can navigate and check on the website Forum and if necessary, post a new thread. Your question might interest other visitors and will be answered quickly.

Note: Please ensure that you check if your national consumer law has any differentiations from the EU Law.