Tuk Tuk Travel (C-83/22): rebuilding procedural autonomy or simply defending personal freedom?

Abstract

On 17 May 2022, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice delivered the judgments Unicaja (C869/19), Ibercaja (C-600/19) and SPV Project (C-693/19 & C-831/19), which essentially concluded that, for the sake of the effectiveness of EU consumer law, national courts were required to disregard basic principles of national procedure, such as the principle of consistency of the judgment with the parties’ pleas or the principle of res judicata. As explained in a Op-Ed in EU Law Live, to my understanding, these three judgments destroyed the principle of procedural autonomy and wrecked the architecture of civil procedure of some Member States in consumer cases. In Tuk Tuk Travel (C-83/22), the Court of Justice was confronted, once again, with a conflict between EU consumer law and the principles of national procedure. But, this time, the Second Chamber of the Court appears to have taken an approach that deviates, at least to some extent, from the conclusions reached a year ago by the Grand Chamber.