The EU Online Dispute Resolution Platform is being scrapped, having only been used about 200 time per year to progress cases, across the entire European Union. That’s been deemed a bit of a failure according to the EU’s principles of efficiency and effectiveness.
The aim was noble, sellers had to provide a link to the EU’s online dispute resolution service so that buyers can complain about you there rather than the more expensive option of taking you to court. The idea is that you and your problem buyer will be able to sort things out relatively amicably and without racking up legal fees.
All affected Cross Border Trade sellers selling into the EU were required to comply with the new rules and display the link to the ODR website and if you’d gotten around to doing so you can now delete the links from your website and any channels you trade on. (Chances are high that you never got around to doing so in which case you can ignore this article!)
The deadline for a buyer to use the ODR Platform and submit any complaints will be the 20th of March 2025, with the entire service being ended by the 20th of July 2025 with all data to be deleted after this date.
There is another bit of legislation, which will still apply to sellers, buyers can opt to use the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) instead oof the ODR.
