Week 39: Sweden's e-commerce trust mark failed its own audit

Konsumentverket reviewed the contract terms of 50 online retailers carrying Svensk Handel's Trygg E-handel certification and found unfair terms at 46 of them. The problems clustered in three places: clauses disclaiming liability for pricing errors after a purchase is made, clauses denying responsibility for inaccurate product descriptions and images, and blanket force-majeure and damage exclusions that Swedish consumer law does not permit.

The authority has opened supervision proceedings against all 46 and given them until the end of September to return remediation plans. Swedish trade press named Elgiganten, Clas Ohlson and Stadium among those reviewed. The certification scheme is administered by the retail trade body itself.

ACM wrote to all energy suppliers after investigating telephone sales in which agents introduce themselves as independent price comparators while being paid by a supplier. Suppliers must show ACM what they are doing to stop the practice, and remain responsible for their entire sales chain including contracted third parties. No companies were named and no fines were issued.

ACM's framing was blunt: energy contracts are complicated products that should not be concluded on the back of an unsolicited phone call.

The ILT sent its 2027 annual plan to parliament on 15 September with a €251.6m budget. PFAS in water, environmental crime, soil quality and products entering the Netherlands from non-EU webshops are named growth priorities; oversight of dangerous-goods transport, taxis and rail and aviation noise is scaled back. Inspector-General Mattheus Wassenaar: "We can no longer offer the same level of oversight everywhere."

A day later the Consumentenbond criticised the 2027 budget for cutting ACM's funding from 2028 and taking the data protection authority from €60m in 2026 to under €49m a year by 2028, against a stated requirement of €100m.

The Swedish government inquiry on corporate sustainability due diligence delivered its report (SOU 2026:56) on 17 September, proposing how the EU due-diligence directive is written into national law: companies must identify, prevent, limit and remedy human-rights and environmental harm in their own operations and value chains.

Thresholds after the Omnibus reset are high: more than 5,000 employees and global net turnover above €1.5bn, with non-EU companies captured at €1.5bn of EU turnover, and franchise and licence structures pulled in where royalty and turnover tests are met. The report now goes to consultation.

IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet published a mapping of directly imported consumer goods combining laboratory testing with a consumer survey. Testing across four categories found lead and phthalates in electronics, PFAS, dyes and heavy metals in textiles and footwear, and cadmium, lead, nickel and mercury in jewellery.

More than 70% of consumers who had previously bought from foreign e-commerce platforms said they would buy again, falling to 35% once they were told the products do not meet EU safety and chemical requirements. Around 5.9 billion low-value consignments (under €150) entered the EU in 2025. Project lead Amanda Martvall noted that chemical content, unlike poor quality, is not visible to the buyer.

Oxfam published lifecycle calculations by the consultancy RDC Environnement comparing 5 kg of clothing through three second-hand channels: 0.6 kg CO₂ through solidarity and thrift shops, 2.9 kg through commercial second-hand retailers and 3.1 kg through digital resale platforms, using Vinted as the worked example, roughly a fivefold gap between the charity shop and the platform.

Oxfam's argument is not that resale is harmful but that platform models can generate additional consumption rather than displacing it, so volume through a resale channel is not by itself an environmental gain.

Hollands Wol Collectief, the Dutch venture built to turn domestic sheep wool into a local textile chain, announced on 17 September that it stops trading on 1 November. Founder Janne de Hoop gave a price explanation: "alternatieven zijn simpelweg te goedkoop", the alternatives are simply too cheap.

In the same 48 hours two circular services expanded. Nudie Jeans opened its repair service to denim from competing brands on 16 September, turning an own-brand loyalty service into open infrastructure. Decathlon began re-leasing refurbished lease bikes in the Benelux on 17 September at up to 60% below the price of a new bike, with a two-year warranty.