The ODR platform has closed: check your mediator and notices

If your legal notices or your T&Cs were drafted a few years ago, they probably contain a link to the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform. That link no longer works: the Commission wound down the platform in 2025. Many retailers have not yet spotted it, and continue to display a dead link in their footer.

It is not dramatic, but it is the occasion to reset a point of compliance that most online retailers confuse: the European platform, and your consumer ADR body (mediator). The two are distinct, and only one of them is still an obligation.

What has disappeared, what remains

The ODR platform was an online service of the European Commission intended to direct a consumer from an EU country towards a mediation mechanism. Online sales sites had to display its link. Since that platform is no longer operational, the obligation to display its link falls away: a link to a closed service no longer makes sense, and keeping it gives a poor impression of your site.

What does not change is your obligation on alternative dispute resolution: any trader who sells to consumers must give them access to a certified consumer ADR entity, and communicate its contact details (name and website) on their site, their T&Cs and their order documents. This obligation flows from the Consumer ADR Directive 2013/11/EU, harmonised across the 27 EU member states (in Ireland, the certified ADR bodies are listed by the CCPC): it existed before the European platform, and it still exists after it.

The classic mistake: believing the platform "counted as" a mediator

The ODR platform never replaced your obligation to join a mediation mechanism and display its contact details. It was a mere European entry point. If you only had a link to that platform, with no designated mediator, you were already not quite compliant, and you are even less so today.

We detail the full obligation (who is concerned, what must be displayed, how a mediation unfolds) on our dedicated page: consumer mediator.

Take the opportunity to review your legal pages

Updating a dead link is the occasion to check all of your legal notices and T&Cs, which age fast: identity of the publisher, host, pre-contractual information, legal warranties, mediator… and, since 19 June 2026, the mandatory withdrawal button. We have made the full list of the legal pages of a compliant shop here: e-commerce legal notices and T&Cs.

In plain terms: remove the link to the closed European platform, keep (or add) your consumer mediator, and deal as a priority with the withdrawal button. Three minutes of tidying up your legal pages, and your shop starts again on a clean footing.

This article is general information and does not constitute legal advice. For the exact text, refer to the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) and the Consumer ADR Directive (2013/11/EU) on EUR-Lex.