The Executive Yuan Council today passed a draft amendment to the Consumer Protection Act. It will be sent to the Legislature for deliberation.
In order to make articles related to "standard contracts," "mail order purchases" and "door-to-door sales" more comprehensive and resolve practical disputes arising from these terms, the Executive Yuan's Department of Consumer Protection drafted this revision, which takes into reference related laws and regulations of foreign legal systems like Japan's and the European Union's.
The major points of the amendments are as follows:
1) The terms "mail order purchase" and "door-to-door sale" are amended to "communication transaction" and "face-to-face transaction," respectively, and their applicability is defined more explicitly. (Article 2)
2) Prior to this amendment, the regulation concerning competent authorities at the central government level announcing the mandatory and prohibitory provisions of standard contracts to be used by certain industries infers general authorization. To avert controversy over this, the amendment unequivocally prescribes the purpose, content, scope and legality of such authorized public notices. To ensure consistent implementation of this stipulation, complementary measures on administrative penalties are also appended. (Articles 17 and 56-1)
3) Business operators of communication transactions and face-to-face transactions are obligated to provide buyers-consumers with more comprehensive information on the seller and terms of purchase. Legal consequences for violating this duty to inform are established. Because of the special nature of certain commodities or services, exceptions are established excluding buyers-consumers from rescinding purchase in accordance with Article 19, Paragraph 1 if they are clearly unfair to business operators. In addition, the act's enforcement rules regarding the legal consequences of rescinding purchase contracts have been moved into the act itself. (Articles 18, 19, 19-2 and 19-3)
4) After consumer protection groups announce the results of their testing, they must release relevant information about the testing as well as inform the business operators involved. If the released results are erroneous, the consumer protection groups must proceed with measures of rectification and clarification. (Article 29)
5) Manpower and operations of the Executive Yuan's Consumer Protection Commission have been incorporated into the Executive Yuan as of January 1, 2012; changes in jurisdiction due to organizational restructuring and relevant articles pertaining to such changes have been adjusted. (Articles 39, 41, 44-1 and 49)