On Apr. 11, EC issued approach to strengthen consumer rights.
- Proposed changes to EU law that strengthen EU consumer rights and enforcement.
- More transparency in online marketplace, and in search results on online platform.
Consumer Online Rights
- Inform consumer on whether they are buying from trade or from a private person.
- Consumer to be clearly informed when a search result is being paid for by a trader.
- Inform consumer about the main parameters that determine the ranking of results.
- Extended the application of rights to digital service paid for by consumers to cover free digital services such as cloud storage service, social medial and email account.
Actions by Representatives
- Empower qualified entities to launch representative action on behalf of consumers.
- This is open for entities, such as non-profit consumer organisations, not law firms.
- Consumer has rights in all EU States to claim individual remedy when consumer is affected by unfair commercial practices, such as aggressive, misleading marketing.
Effective Penalties
- National consumer authorities to impose effective penalties in coordinated manner.
- Maximum fine for widespread infringement 4% of trader's annual turnover in each respective EU State with each State being free to introduce higher maximum fines
Dual Quality Consumer Products
- From Sept. 2017, following CMSM guidelines unfair commercial practices directive amended to clarify that dual quality practices misleading consumers are prohibited.
Improved Conditions for Business
- Consumers not allowed to return used products instead of merely trying them out.
- Traders no longer to reimburse the consumers before receiving the returned goods.
- Trader able to communicate with consumer via web forms or chat instead of email.
Effectiveness
- EC consumer proposal will be discussed by the European Parliament and EU Council.
