In my series about the misleading stuff from the Vote Leave bible (HERE) I look back to what they said about various things in order to persuade people to vote to leave the EU. Today I want to look at what they said about the banks. If you want to see for yourself and you have a few days of your life to waste you can find the 1000 page tome, written in 2015 HERE. The helpful Q & A section begins on page 944. Two years on and with the vote in the bag and negotiations underway, we can look back on what was said and compare it with reality.
Mr Elliot's Answer: Yes. WTO rules on cross-border sales would still apply, and this is increasingly the key forum in e-commerce.
What will actually happen:
Any consumer who suffers damage can at present apply to the ECJ for a remedy. Under WTO rules only governments can apply for a remedy and they may not be interested in your complaint. Resolving cases is likely to take much longer even if the government takes up your case. See HERE
"When a British small business faces a battalion of minor German regulations before it can provide a service there, it can start proceedings in a German court alleging breach of EU law on free movement of services. If the court is uncertain as to what EU law means on this point, it can simply refer the case to the ECJ to ask for an interpretation of EU law. Quicker and cheaper still would be for the small business to use the web-based “Solvit,” the EU’s informal mechanism which aims to resolve citizen and company disputes in less than ten weeks.
WTO rules are an international agreement between sovereign states, so it is a state which must bring a claim to a WTO panel.
