Právní sankce související s greenwashingem potravinářských výrobků

The global increase in consumer interest regarding sustainability and environmentally friendly products has led to greenwashing (deceptive environmental claims) becoming one of the most widespread forms of unfair commercial practice, which has significant negative impacts on consumers and fair competition. This thesis sets the main objective to conduct a legal and comparative analysis of the enforcement framework for sanctioning greenwashing in the food industry using examples from the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, and based on the determined differences, to propose recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of the Czech legal framework. The methodology combines the analysis of primary and secondary legal sources, including new EU legislation (Directive 2024/825, GCD ) and case law (e.g., the Green Swan case and Fossielvrij vs. KLM ), with qualitative interviews with key experts from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) and the self-regulatory body (SRC). Findings confirmed that the key difference in the effectiveness of greenwashing regulation does not lie in the absence of a primary law against unfair practices, but in legal transparency, proactive supervision, and the enforceability of self-regulation. The Netherlands achieves higher effectiveness through the coordinated use of preventive ACM Guidelines , strong self-regulation by the RCC/SRC (with a high compliance rate of over 95% ), and high litigation risk. In contrast, supervisory bodies in the Czech Republic (ČOI and SZPI) struggle with the absence of explicitly tracked sanctions for greenwashing and low methodical transparency. A fundamental difference was also found in collective actions: The Dutch WAMCA Act with its opt-out system significantly increases the financial threat to corporations , whereas the Czech transposition of the directive chose a conservative opt-in model for claiming damages, which limits the deterrent effect. The conclusion proposes that the Czech Republic should implement binding methodological guidelines for evaluating environmental claims following the ACM model, introduce explicit record-keeping of sanctions for greenwashing, and reassess the limitations of the opt-out model for collective actions to effectively combat greenwashing.