Developments in Consumer Protection in India

This paper surveys the major developments in the field of consumer protection in India since 1984, when the statutory provisions for regulating unfair trade practices were incorporated for the first time.Among the developments described in the paper is the strengthening of provisions for consumer protection through amendments to the Act regulating restrictive and monopolistic trade practices (the MTRP Act). Public-sector undertakings and co-operative societies have been brought within the purview of the Act, and consumers have obtained the right to participate in inquiry proceedings before the MRTP Commission.Consumers and their associations have been given the right to seek redress of grievances arising out of the violation of certain pieces of legislation, including the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986, was enacted in order to provide speedy and inexpensive redress of consumers' grievances. Redress can now be sought before any consumer court also for negligence or deficiency in medical services.The Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986, has strengthened the measures for the standardisation and quality control of manufactured goods.A Consumer Welfare Fund has been set up to provide financial assistance to voluntary consumer organisations and for the general development of consumer movement in the country. A spurt in voluntary consumer organisations in different parts of the country can also be observed.Other developments include the establishment of a separate Department of Consumer Affairs in the Union Government and the setting up of a Consumer Product Testing Laboratory.     

Rectifying Consumer Protection Law and Establishing of a Consumer Court in Indonesia

Journal of Consumer Policy - In 2001, Indonesia established the Consumer Dispute Resolution Body (CDRB) based on the instruction of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) in 1999 to provide consumers...     

Service Markets: The Effects of Competition Policy and Consumer Protection

This article outlines the current status of Competition Policy (Monopolies and Mergers; Anti-Competitive Practices; Restrictive Trade Practices) and Consumer Protection (Legislation; Consumer Protection Agencies; Voluntary Codes of Practice) in services markets. The relative neglect of services markets until recently is reflected in the fragmented and patchwork systems, mechanisms and agencies available in this important sector of the economy and further developments are likely.     

South African Complaint Forums in the Retail Industry: a Survey of Literature and Some Lessons from the EU

South African consumers receiving poor service in the retail industry want to complain, but have limited or no knowledge of the available consumer complaint forums. The consumer complaint forums in the retail industry can generally be divided into those established in terms of the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 and other complaint forums. Before consumers can decide which forum they want to lodge their complaint with, they first need to identify possible complaint forums and then measure each forum according to certain factors. This study made a unique contribution by identifying possible factors which a consumer can refer to in this regard. In developing these factors, guidance was taken from the EU Consumer ADR Directive and the ODR Regulation. The factors suggested in this study included the following: the cost of and time spent on lodging a complaint, the effective functioning of the complaint forum, transparency in the operation of the complaint forum, the relief that a consumer may obtain from the complaint forum, and the user-friendliness of the complaint process. The National Consumer Tribunal, the National Consumer Commission, the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud, and ordinary civil courts were assessed using the above factors. A limitation of this study was that not all complaint forums could be assessed in terms of these factors, due to the lack of publicly available information. This study found that even though South Africans now have more complaint forums at their disposal, this does not translate into positive outcomes for aggrieved consumers. The strength of these forums lies in the buy-in received from both consumers and retailers. True consumer power arises through collective action after careful investigation, and resolving individual complaints may not result in the change of consumer policy which is actually what is required in the long run.     

Business self-regulation and consumer protection in India: A critique

In India, as a result of the enactment and implementation of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 there has been an increased amount of self-regulation by the public as well as by the private corporate sector. The mounting pressure by consumer organisations and the growing number of cases filed by consumers before the three-tier quasi-judicial Consumer Disputes Redressal Agencies established under the 1986 Act have propelled the corporate sector in India to become more socially accountable then ever before. Though it may be too early to comment on the success or failure of this Act, it has nevertheless initiated a process of change at least in the behaviour of the urban business community and has coerced it to regulate itself.The paper purports to highlight and evaluate the present state of business self-regulation in India. The author has critically examined the Codes of Ethics recently announced by some sections of the business community in India. He has also endeavoured to cite a few recent cases argued before the Consumer Forums, more particularly by the consumers' associations, where instead of resorting to protracted legal battles, industry has reconciled itself to consumers' demands. Thus the central theme of the paper is to show how the 1986 Act has propelled the corporate sector to resort to self-regulation and to critically examine this new development. The author concludingly argues that in order to achieve the much-cherished goal of social change in India, much still remains to be accomplished and that there is a need for a co-ordinated approach to solve the problem of consumer protection as law alone may not be effective.

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Zusammenfassung Anbieter-Selbstregulierung und Verbraucherschutz in Indien: Eine Kritik. In Indien hat es als Folge der Einführung des Verbraucherschutzgesetzes 1986 ein starkes Anwachsen der Selbstregulierung gegeben, und zwar sowohl bei den öffentlichen Anbietern wie auch bei den privaten Anbietern. Es gab einen wachsenden Druck auf die anbietende Wirtschaft durch die Verbraucherorganisationen und durch die Tatsache, da\ die Konsumenten eine wachsende Zahl von Verfahren bei den dreistufigen quasigerichtlichen Verbraucherschiedsstellen eröffnet haben, die aufgrund des Gesetzes von 1986 eingerichtet worden sind. Jedenfalls hat dieser Druck ein deutliches Anwachsen der sozialen Verantwortlichkeit bei der indischen Wirtschaft bewirkt. Obwohl ein abschlie\endes Urteil über den Erfolg oder Mi\erfolg dieses Gesetzes noch nicht möglich ist, lä\t sich aber jetzt schon feststellen, da\ es einen Wandel zumindest im Verhalten der städtischen Anbieter bewirkt hat und zu mehr Selbstegulierung geführt hat.Der Autor setzt sich kritisch mit den ethischen Verhaltensrichtlinien auseinander, die einzelne Branchen angekündight haben. Er führt au\erdem einige neuere Fälle an, die vor den Verbraucherforen verhandelt wurden, wo die beklagten Unternehmen den Verbraucheransprüchen entgegenkamen statt in langwierige gerichtliche Verfahren zu flüchten. Für das wichtige Ziel eines sozialen Wandels in Indien bleibt nach Meinung des Autors allerdings noch mehr zu tun; auf jeden Fall ist das Problem des Konsumentenschutzes allein auf gesetzgeberischem Wege nicht zu lösen.

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Presently he is on Nehru-Centenary British Commonwealth Fellowship Award (1990–93) and is doing research at the Department of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

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The author is thankful to the Post-Graduate Tutor and his learned supervisor Dr. Werner F. Menski for his valuable comments on the earlier draft of his paper.     

The Evolution of Consumer Product Safety Policy and Regulation in India

Consumer product safety in India is undergoing a series of structural reforms, encompassing general consumer protection and specific product safety regulation. This article critically examines the state of consumer product safety as it has developed since the adoption of the original Consumer Protection Act 1986 and Bureau of Indian Standards Act 1986 and on that basis puts forward a first reasoned analysis of the major reforms currently under discussion (the Consumer Protection Bill 2015) or recently passed but not yet implemented (the Bureau of Indian Standards Act 2016). The analysis is framed against the backdrop of a preliminary discussion of the constitutional architecture of India, which is in itself a source of complication in the development of coherent consumer policies. The picture emerging from this article shows that, while progress is being made, the field of consumer product safety in India is a difficult work in progress where policy and regulatory developments are hard to achieve incrementally, and structural reform come at the cost of fundamental choices the feasibility of which might prove difficult.     

我国涉案WTO争端解决的国内法审查以及应对研究

随着我国加入WTO之后的国际贸易地位日益提高,贸易争端也接踵而至。我国在WTO被诉争端解决案件均涉及国内法,并不得不接受WTO争端解决机构的审查,从而对我国在扩大改革开放的新形势下如何建立健全国内法制,构成了前所未有的挑战。本文首先在界定此类审查的含义基础上,分析了WTO争端解决机构对已决案或待决案涉及的我国国内法进行审查的实践;然后提出应区分WTO争端解决机构审查我国涉案国内法的一般与特殊标准,并据此结合案例展开我国涉案的分析,指出两者一致的客观评估理念;最后从加强研究WTO法律框架下的国内法解析、建立与之适应的我国涉案国内法的举证机制和依据有关审查标准完善国内法这三方面,提出应对我国涉案的国内法审查以及在新形势下推进我国法制建设的路径。     

Consumer Protection Act, 1986: Law and policy in India

India passed its new Consumer Protection Act in 1986. The author points out that the Act is a landmark in the history of the consumer protection movement in India. It concerns mainly the regulation of consumer disputes and creates specific redress agencies at district, state, and Union level. It also contains general provisions for consumer rights and for the organization of the consumer interest.

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Verbraucherschutzgesetz 1986: Recht und Politik in Indien

Zusammenfassung Nach Meinung des Autors handelt es sich bei dem neuen indischen Verbraucherschutzgesetz um einen Meilenstein in der Verbraucherschutzbewegung dieses Landes. Das Gesetz betrifft vor allem die Regelung von Konsumentenstreitigkeiten, für die es eigene Einrichtungen und verfahren auf Distrikt-, Provinz- und Unionsebene schafft. Das Gesetz enthält auch allgemeine Verbraucherrechte und einen organisatorischen Rahmen zur Verbrauchervertretung.

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Rajendra Kumar Nayak is an Associate Research Professor at the Indian Law Institute, Bhagwan Dass Road, New Delhi-110001, India, and Member, Central Consumer Protection Council, Government of India.     

Preliminary ruling on discriminatory advertising

Finland has no special marketing regulations for dealing with sex discrimination. The paper reports on a recent decision of the Market Court according to which the general clause about good practice of the Consumer Protection Act can be applied to discriminatory advertising. But the Finnish Consumer Ombudsman believes that discriminatory advertising should be regulated separately by a special provision entered either into the Act on Equality between Men and Women or into the Consumer Protection Act.

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Zusammenfassung VorlÄufige Regelung diskriminierender Werbung in Finnland Finnland hat keine speziellen rechtlichen Regelungen gegen Geschlechterdiskriminierung in der Werbung. Der Beitrag berichtet über eine neuere Entscheidung des finnischen Marktgerichtshofes, nach der allgemeinere Regelungen des Verbraucherschutzgesetzes auf geschlechtsdiskriminierende Werbung angewendet werden können. Allerdings ist die finnische Verbraucher-Ombudsbehörde der Meinung, da\ diskriminierende Werbung durch eine eigene Bestimmung geregelt werden sollte, die entweder in das Gesetz über die Gleichstellung von Mann und Frau oder in das Verbraucherschutzgesetz eingefügt werden sollte.

     

Business-to-Consumer Harassment,Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the UK—A Distorted Picture of Uniform Harmonization?

The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005 (UCPD) attempts to achieve a full harmonization of the rules against unfair business-to-consumer (B2C) practices. However, this paper argues that the UCPD cannot resolve disparities in national laws because of a lack of clarity of concepts and the existence of uncertain substantive and enforcement provisions. This is demonstrated by the Ferguson v British Gas case which extended the loosely formulated UK Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (PHA) to B2C harassment cases covered by the UCPD. Ferguson highlights contradictions in the approaches of the two systems which suggest loopholes in the UCPD’s full harmonization goal. As well as proposing the amendment of the PHA, the paper suggests that complete harmonization requires that issues of clarity of concepts, definitions, liability, ancillary tort claims, and enforcement rights which create room for creative interpretations and lack of uniformity should be addressed. A one-stop legislation approach to transposition can also improve harmonization.     

《美韩自由贸易协定》投资章刍议

《美韩自由贸易协定》投资章内容包括实体性规定和程序性规定,实体性规定主要体现在有关投资定义、待遇、征收补偿、转移、业绩要求和不符措施等条款上,这些规定体现了高水平的投资保护和投资自由化,对中国参与国际投资规则谈判乃至中国(上海)自由贸易试验区投资管理体制的改革提供有益的借鉴与启示。     

Bending and Stretching the Health Care Cost Curve

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) has a number of provisions that aimed at slowing the rate of growth of health care spending. This paper examines the most prominent of these provisions and finds them to be seriously flawed and unlikely to deliver savings as intended. They are either too weak or liable to compromise quality. Moreover, some of the most important drivers of health care costs, such as fee for service payments to physicians under Medicare or limitations on physician liability are not addressed adequately. Thus, it is unlikely that the PPACA in its present form will do much to reduce the growth rate of health care expenditures.     

Reflections on Consumer Law and Policy in Seychelles

Consumerism only reached Seychelles after a wave of market-liberalization reforms adopted in 2008 as a response to a dire economic crisis. Consumer law is therefore only a recent phenomenon in the country. The main sources of inspiration for Seychelles legislation are the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection, the EU Directive on unfair contract terms, and the South African Consumer Protection Act. Policy initiatives tend to be modelled either on other small island countries or on Commonwealth countries. The formal legal framework is overall modern and in line with international guidelines. However, the article identifies two sets of challenges encountered in practice. First, local standardization efforts fail to address the matter of poor-quality products entering the market, and this lack of local capacity is insufficiently complemented by reliance on international standards. Secondly, consumers seldom rely on the adjudicatory mechanism provided by consumer laws and informal settlement mechanisms are preferred, which comes at the cost of depriving consumer law operatives of precious interpretative materials, leaving areas of legal uncertainty. While policy guidance from the political sphere would be needed, it is unclear how much attention consumer matters will receive in the medium term.     

The Spanish act on the protection of the rights of consumers and users

The paper informs about the promulgation and the contents of the new Spanish Consumer Protection Act of 1984. This Act was motivated by the so-called toxic syndrome in 1981, when many people were killed or severely injured due to the use of degenerated olive oil. The Act establishes certain basic substantive and procedural rights for consumers and consumer organizations. It provides for an institutional structure to implement the Act, a structure which is, however, characterized by a remarkable degree of imprecision. Despite certain critical observations, the author concludes that the Act must be regarded as a success for the Spanish consumer movement.

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Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz berichtet über Erlaß und Inhalt des neuen spanischen Gesetzes zum Schutz der Verbraucher von 1984. Das Gesetz wurde ausgelöst durch die Folgen des Genusses vergifteten Olivenöls im Jahre 1981, an dem zahlreiche Menschen starben. Das Gesetz kodifiziert zentrale materielle Rechte und verfahrensrechliche Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten von Konsumenten und Verbraucherorganisationen. Es schafft einen institutionellen Rahmen zur Rechtsdurchsetzung, der allerdings nur vage und unpräzise ausgefüllt ist. Bei aller Kritik bedeutet das Gesetz nach überzeugung des Autors einen wichtigen Erfolg der spanischen Verbraucherschutzbewegung.

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Ignacio Uriarte Bofarull is a lawyer with the Spanish consumer organization Organizaci%on de consumidores y usuarios (O.C.U.), Serrano 78/5 dcha, Madrid 6, Spain. The paper was translated from Spanish to English by Norbert Reich.     

Consumer Bankruptcy: A Right or a Privilege? The Role of the Courts in Establishing Moral Standards of Economic Conduct

The Norwegian Consumer Bankruptcy Act was passed 17 July 1992 to give persons with "serious debt problems (. . .) the possibility to gain control over their economy." The Act contains provisions for negotiations between the debtor and the creditors, for court rulings on repayment plans, and for a discharge of the debts not covered by the plan. The origin of the Act was a social welfare approach to the problem of overindebtedness. However, the Act embodies an inherent contradiction in that it also includes moral elements in order to prevent it from exerting a negative influence on the perceived obligation to pay one's debts. This contradiction has given the courts a wide scope of discretion in the application of the Act. As a result, cases are treated differently in different jurisdictions. Some judges put more emphasis on moral evaluations than others. This situation also gives room for strategic action from creditor groups who typically are repeat players in cases of consumer bankruptcy. In this way the more objective, social welfare approach of the Act is undermined.     

The US trade reform act of 1974

The 1974 Trade Act gives the US President extensive authority to engage in multilateral trade negotiations in the framework of GATT. The following article offers a survey of the provisions of the Act and discusses its possible impact on international trade relations.     

The effect of domestic and foreign trade coordination on technological innovation: complements or substitutes?

Based on the theory of technology spillover in international trade, this paper discusses the technological innovation effect of trade by taking the influence of domestic trade into account. Under the constraint of the production possibility frontier, there is either complementarity or substitutability between domestic and foreign trade. It must be decided whether resources should be concentrated in one of the sectors (trade specialization) or instead allocated equally (trade equalization) between the two sectors. This paper firstly discusses how domestic trade and foreign trade work together to influence technological innovation, and how trade equalization and specialization affect different types of innovation. Using a provincial-level panel dataset from 2007 to 2015 in China, this paper constructs the indicators of domestic and foreign trade linkage and examines the impact of trade on innovation. The findings show that trade equalization mainly promotes incremental innovation, while trade specialization improves radical innovation. Thus, in the area of incremental innovation, attention should be paid to the equalized development of domestic and foreign trade, while in areas pursuing radical innovation, emphasis should be put on the specialization of the trade sector, avoiding equal allocation of resources to the two sectors.     

Optimal Substantive Standards for Competition Authorities

Recent years have witnessed a significant resurgence in the debate concerning the optimal substantive standard to be used in the enforcement of competition law. One of the arguments proposed for using a Consumer Surplus standard, is that, when firms can choose from a number of mutually exclusive actions, it may induce firms to adopt actions that lead to a higher level of total welfare than would a Total Welfare standard. This important basic insight, initially due to Lyons (2002), has been discussed and extended in the recent literature always in the context of mergers. In this paper we generalise and re-examine this argument for any potentially anti-competitive action – we have in particular in mind actions often challenged as attempted monopolisation (abuse of dominance) or vertical restraints, taken by firms in different environments. We show that in the absence of any efficiencies the two standards lead to exactly the same outcomes but a choice between them becomes important in the presence of efficiencies. With positive marginal-cost reducing efficiencies we confirm the presence of what we term a Lyons effect in our more general setting. We then examine how the choice of standard depends on a number of relevant parameters. Most important in terms of their policy implications are the results that the Consumer Surplus standard will be the optimal choice, when the extant market power is significant, when the size of marginal cost-reducing efficiency effects is large and when the difference in the market power raising effects of mutually exclusive actions is large. These results are important since they suggest that in all cases where significant extant market power is a prerequisite for the enforcement of Competition Law it is best to use a Consumer Surplus standard.     

Regulating Marketing Communications on the Internet

Abstract

Cybersquatters register internet domain names matching trademarks owned by other individuals or companies, intending to coerce payments before relinquishing that domain name to the rightful trademark owner. As online commerce expanded, so too has trademark infringement complaints concerning internet domain names. Congress passed two acts in recent years to deal with the controversy, the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995, also known as Section 43(c) of the Lanham Trademark Act, and the more recent Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of 1999, also known as Section 43(d) of the Lanham Trademark Act. Causes for action, defenses, and remedies are discussed for both. This article analyzes their impact.     

Der österreichische Entwurf eines Konsumentenschutzgesetzes

The report gives information about origins, aims, and contents of the Austrian bill for a Consumer Protection Act which has been submitted to the National Council (Nationalrat) of the Austrian Parliament and will be heard in the Justice Committee (Justizausschuß). The bill aims at a far-reaching protection for the consumer in the field of contract law, excluding, however, product liability and certain specific contracts (such as travelling and correspondence courses). The main points of the bill are as follows:

1. The consumer will be protected in instances of doorstep contracts by granting a cooling-off period of one week. Certain clauses in contracts to the detriment of the consumer will be void, for instance, clauses which limit the validity of oral representations, and clauses in standard form contracts which the consumer did not have reason to expect (überraschende Klauseln). The judge will be accorded the right to lower penalties stipulated in contracts. The right of the consumer to get the contract annulled will be strenghtened in cases oflaesio enormis (i.e., where the stipulated price exceeds the true value by more than one half).
2. The consumer will be protected against unfair contents in standard form contracts. The bill foresees two legal means of protection. (a) A general clause to be introduced into the Austrian Civil Code (Art. 879 § 3) will void all stipulations in standard form contracts, which unfairly deprive the consumer of his rights, and which have not freely and reasonably been consented to by the consumer because they were contained in standard forms of the other party or because this party exploited its superiority when putting them into the contract. In addition, the bill voids specific clauses, not only in standard form contracts but also in individual contracts (e.g., exemption clauses with regard to warranties or breach of contract). (b) The bill institutes a collective action which enables certain associations (workers' chambers — Arbeiterkammern, chambers of commerce — Wirtschaftskammern, trade unions, the Association for Consumer Information — der Verein für Konsumenteninformation) to bring action against anybody using illegal standard form contracts.
3. The bill contains provision for forbidding certain unreasonable clauses regarding, e. g., bills of exchange, the use of wage claims as security, and jurisdiction clauses.
4. The bill will incorporate the Instalment Sales Act (Ratengesetz) into the new Consumer Protection Act, thereby extending its sphere of application to most transactions between businessmen and consumers.