Significant changes to consumer protection laws came into force on 1 September. These include:
- restricting use of mediation boards to individuals. Previously, they could also be used by companies buying products for their own use
- requiring mediation proceedings to take place within 90 days (previously 60 days) but still with an extra 30 days’ extension available where justified
- removing the right of appeal against mediation board decisions, although applications can be made to court to annul the decision for a non-procedural reason
- allowing businesses to apply for annulment of any recommendation by the mediation board which is inconsistent with the law
- allowing the mediation board to publish the name, registered seat and activities of any business which has not complied with a recommendation, didn’t offer any evidence, failed to attend the hearing, obstructed the proceedings and prevented the parties from reaching a settlement
- introducing new rules for businesses which are required by law to have a customer services operation (e.g. public utility suppliers, financial, insurance and cashier service providers and employers' pension payment institutions.) including requirements to:
- open their customer services premises from 8am to 8pm on at least one business day of the week and be accessible by phone throughout the same period
- make customer services accessible by email and internet at all times
- allow customers to make appointments for personal administration of their affairs by electronic means and by phone
- record all phone complaints, keep them for five years and make them available to the customer on request
- establishing a customer services operation representing all state bodies, to be run by the consumer protection ministry, which will be contactable by phone and electronically and will forward customer complaints to the relevant authorities and inform customers of the proceedings available to them
- enabling the Consumer Protection Authority to impose fines based on a percentage of a business’s revenue
- extending the scope of resolutions which may be made and published by the Consumer Protection Authority (as well as those which are legal and binding) to include:
- orders that a resolution be implemented irrespective of any other remedy available (as well as the cases set out by law relating to administrative proceedings, environmental reasons, protecting consumers health and physical safety or prevention from damage threatening a large group of consumers)
- resolutions made where the Consumer Protection Authority establishes in the course of legal proceedings that a product does not meet safety standards
- orders for temporary closure of a shop or prohibition on the sale or distribution of a product
Law: Act CLV of 1997 on Consumer Protection
