Various factors, such as limited financial means, a fear of retaliation and exclusive choice of law and forum provisions in terms and conditions, can limit the effectiveness of existing judicial redress possibilities, particularly those which require business users or corporate website users to act individually and identifiably. To ensure the effective application of this Regulation, organisations, associations representing business users or corporate website users, as well as certain public bodies set up in Member States, should be granted the possibility to take action before national courts in accordance with national law, including national procedural requirements. Such action before national courts should aim to stop or prohibit infringements of the rules set out in this Regulation and to prevent future damage that could undermine sustainable business relationships in the online platform economy. In order to ensure that such organisations or associations exercise that right effectively and in an appropriate manner, they should meet certain criteria. In particular, they must be properly established according to the law of a Member State, be of a non-profit making character and pursue their objectives on a sustained basis. Those requirements should prevent any ad hoc establishment of organisations or associations for the purpose of a specific action or specific actions, or for the sake of making profits. Furthermore, it should be ensured that there is no undue influence by any third party providers of financing on decision-making by those organisations or associations.
In order to avoid a conflict of interest, organisations or associations representing business users or corporate website users should, in particular, be prevented from being subject to undue influence from any providers of online intermediation services or of any online search engines. The full and public disclosure of information on membership and source of financing should facilitate national courts in assessing whether these eligibility criteria are met. Considering the particular status of the relevant public bodies in Member States where such bodies have been set up, it should only be required that those have been specifically charged, in accordance with the relevant rules of national law, with bringing such actions either in the collective interest of the parties concerned or in the general interest, without there being a need to apply those criteria to such public bodies. Any such actions should in no way affect the rights of the business users and corporate website users to take judicial action on an individual basis.