Two additional organisations have been designated as Irish qualified entities (“QEs”) by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment under the Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumer Act 2023 (the “Act”).
The designation of Euroconsum e.V. (“Euroconsum”) and WhizzBang e.V. (“WhizzBang”) as the fourth and fifth QEs, follows the previous similar designations of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (“ICCL”), noyb-European Centre for Digital Rights (“noyb”), and Digital Rights Ireland (“DRI”).
Representative actions under the Act, which implemented the EU Representative Actions Directive in Ireland and was commenced at the end of April 2024, can only be brought by a QE acting on behalf of consumers impacted by alleged infringements of prescribed consumer legislation.
Where are they designated?
The Register of QEs, which the Minister is required under section 16 of the Act to keep and maintain, has been updated to record that both Euroconsum and WhizzBang have complied with the designation requirements of section 8(1) of the Act and have been designated as QEs in Ireland with effect from 12 May 2026.
According to the European Commission’s list of cross-border QEs, neither entity has been designated as a cross-border QE and so, currently at least, neither Euroconsum or WhizzBang are able to take cross-border consumer representative actions elsewhere in the EU and will only be able to bring domestic consumer representative actions.
What areas do they operate in?
Euroconsum is a German consumer organisation based in Frankfurt. Its website indicates that it has various areas of interest including data protection, the health and wellness market, and dynamic pricing practices in both online and physical retail.
Notably, Euroconsum appears to maintain a broader consumer protection mandate than the previous Irish-designated QEs, which to date have focused predominantly on digital and data rights. This wider remit may potentially result in consumer representative actions in areas beyond data protection.
WhizzBang is described on its website as a pan-European non-governmental organisation that campaigns for the interests of consumers in the EU, with a particular focus on individuals who reside in an EU member state in which they did not grow up. The network offers individual advice and support, conducts research, and publishes reports on the challenges facing expats as consumers as well as engaging in lobbying before EU institutions for legislative change.
How will they fund potential actions?
As we have discussed previously, (see here, here and here), QEs are required by the Act to be non-profit in nature in order to satisfy the designation criteria. Consequently, the current restrictions on third-party litigation funding in Ireland have been cited by some commentators as a potential barrier to the ability of any QE to pursue a representative action in the State. The Irish representative actions framework caps the fee that QEs are able to charge to consumers seeking to join a representative action at €25 per consumer per representative action.
What is the potential impact of these designations?
The designation of Euroconsum and WhizzBang brings the total number of QEs in Ireland to five. While the existing Irish-designated QEs have focused primarily on privacy and digital rights, the arrival of Euroconsum in particular, with its broader consumer protection mandate, may signal an expansion in the types of representative actions which might be brought before the Irish courts.
To date, only one consumer representative action has been commenced in Ireland under the Act. Only time will tell whether these new designations will accelerate the development of representative action litigation in this jurisdiction.
We will continue to monitor for any further developments in this area. If you are interested in reading further into this area, you can find some of our previous articles on the Matheson Insights page.
Contact us
If you have any queries about anything discussed in this insight, please contact Matheson partners Michael Byrne, Julie Murphy O’Connor, Karen Reynolds, Connor Cassidy, Angela Brennan, Sarah Jayne Hanna, Davinia Brennan, Marie McGinley or your usual Matheson contact.
