Blogs

The defendant advertised holiday homes at Germany's Baltic coast in the internet where he indicated prices per week. However, only at the very end of the advertisment additional costs of a "final cleaning" were mentioned. The court (Schleswig-Holsteinsches OLG) held that the advertisment was contrary to German pricing law which requires the indication of the final price including all costs, fees and taxes.

Following a complaint from two Alitalia passengers whose flights were canceled, the Department’s Aviation Enforcement Office investigated the carrier’s refusal to pay cash compensation to the passengers. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) now fined  Alitalia USD 125,000 for providing inaccurate information on its website regarding its policy on compensation to passengers on delayed and cancelled flights. 

In their first discussion of the proposal on Tuesday, transport committee MEPs welcomed the proposal to update air passengers' rights tabled by the Commission on 13 March but insisted that it include rules on hand luggage and solutions for passengers stranded if an airline goes bankrupt. Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas paid tribute to Parliament's preparatory work in 2012. The transport committee will appoint rapporteurs for the two regulations in the coming weeks.

Effective April 1, 2013, the United Kingdom will implement a new Air Passenger Duty (APD) chargeable on passengers being transported from a U.K. airport on a qualifying aircraft. The calculation of the APD is determined by the number of chargeable passengers, their destination and their travel class.

The EU Regulation 1371/2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations provides that a passenger who is facing a delay of one hour or more may request a partial refund of the ticket price from the railway company. This compensation is a minimum of 25% of the ticket price for delays of one hour to 119 minutes and a minimum of 50% for delays of two hours or more.

On 12 March 2013, the European Parliament voted to support the new legislation on Alternative Dispute Resolution and Online Dispute Resolution. The vote confirms the political agreement reached in December 2012 on the two legislative proposals put forward by the European Commission in 2011. The new legislation will now soon be adopted.

and here is the brand new Proposal itself (fr, en, de only!): COM (2013) 130 final

EN:

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kallas/headlines/news/2013/03/d...(2013)130-proposal-for-regulation_en.pdf

DE:

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kallas/headlines/news/2013/03/d...(2013)130-proposal-for-regulation_de.pdf

FR:

On 12 February 2013, the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation published on its website the draft Federal Law on the Accession of the Russian Federation to the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air of 28 May 1999 ("Montreal Convention").