From 1 March 2010, consumer rights in Slovakia are to be strengthened.
The new laws will also apply to legal relationships and proceedings originating before 28 February 2010.
Slovak law already protects consumers against unfair actions by sellers, reflecting the parties’ relative inequality of bargaining position.
It follows EU legislation in outlawing the use of certain provisions by sellers in their standard terms of business to strengthen their position towards consumers. These provisions are deemed invalid if used in consumer contracts and include:
- limiting consumers’ rights to complain
- entitling the seller to claim unreasonably high compensation if the consumer breaches his contractual obligation
- entitling the seller to make unilateral and unnecessary changes to terms and conditions
Very often, the courts have not allowed sellers to enforce a particular contractual provision against an individual consumer but the seller has continued to operate the provision against other consumers.
From 1 March 2010, an amendment to the Civil Code amendment will require the seller to stop operating any unacceptable provision in all its consumer contracts, not just the one which was the subject of court proceedings.
Any seller continuing to operate a provision in its consumer contract after a court has ruled it unacceptable faces criticism from consumer protection bodies and the possible loss of its trading licence.
Legislation already exists to protect suppliers from unfair actions by large customers seeking to abuse their dominant market position by dictating the terms of supply to their operations. This currently applies to all branches of commerce but there is currently an initiative in the Slovak Parliament to restrict it to commercial dealings between suppliers of foodstuffs and retail chains.
Law: amendment to Civil Code; Act on inappropriate conditions in commercial relations No. 172/2008 Coll., as amended
