Filenews 22 September 2022 - by Eleftheria Paizanou
The Cyprus Consumers Association appears sceptical about the New Deal for Consumers, which better enforces and modernizes the rules of the European Union (EU).
The transposition into national law of the European directive on unfair terms, the indication of product prices, unfair practices and consumer rights will be done through the bill on Consumer Protection, which has already been put under the microscope of the Parliamentary Committee on Trade.
The Cyprus Consumers Association considers that the bill does not fully shield consumers and puts forward obstacles to claiming their law. The bill ensures more transparency in online marketplaces by introducing additional information obligations for traders and prohibiting certain misleading commercial practices. In addition, it is necessary to apply consumer protection rules, with the introduction of more effective and easily applicable sanctions in practice, with the additional development of the already existing common European mechanism for strengthening consumer rights and the law adopted. The new rules aim to fill gaps identified following an assessment of the existing institutional framework, many of which are linked to digital transactions and the digital market in general.
In the competent committee of the House, the article-by-article discussion of the bill began and it was decided to include in it a provision for unfair terms. Specifically, following the recent decision of the Court of Justice of the EU, a provision will be included by which the judges of the District Courts will be able to examine ex officio (not necessarily) cases of unfair terms of banks and land development companies.
In view of the conclusion of the discussion of the bill in the Trade Committee of the House, the Consumers' Association complains, in an announcement, that the recommendations it made on the bill were not discussed in the last session of the Trade committee, last Tuesday. The Commission has assured that it will examine them at a later stage, through the submission of draft laws.
In particular, the reservations of the association focus on the provision concerning the power of the Director of the Consumer Protection Service to suspend the investigation and the taking of measures against any offender, with a simple statement by the offender that he will comply in the future with the relevant legislation. "Imagine what can be done," the association writes, "when in a case against a bank for unfair terms or unfair commercial practices, involving damage to consumers of tens of millions, the Director decides to suspend any investigation and measure against the bank, without any safeguards."
At the same time, he notes that at a time when superpowers are granted to the Director of the Consumer Service, he is not given the power to order the offender to return what he illegally took from consumers. It also expresses its concern about the retention of the right of the offender to apply for a Hierarchical Appeal before the Minister, against a decision of the Director of the Consumer Protection Service and that the Minister has the right to even annul the decision of the Director. "The minister's decisions to date on hierarchical appeals lead effortlessly to the conclusion that they were abused and were issued with political or other motives and not for the purposes of administering justice," the association argues.
Finally, there is disagreement with the power given to the director of the Consumer Protection Service to impose a fine of even millions "without any safeguard and control of his decision".
