The Ministry of Economy has published a draft emergency ordinance to ensure better compliance with legal provisions on consumer protection, including remedies where consumers have been affected by unfair commercial practices and the definition of new misleading commercial practices.
The Ministry argues that in today’s world, digital markets are fast becoming the main consumer markets. The rapid evolution of digital markets is a major challenge for consumer protection legislation. The regulatory framework for consumer protection must ensure that all consumers remain protected, and it is therefore imperative that the current consumer protection framework is amended so that the measures adopted deliver tangible benefits to consumers, says the explanatory memorandum.
Thus, the Ministry of Economy proposes the transposition of a European directive providing for better enforcement of EU consumer protection rules.
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The regulations will apply from 28 May 2022. The draft ordinance introduces a wide range of changes to a number of pieces of legislation.
Consumer redress and huge fines if not enforced
This calls for more effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for large-scale cross-border infringements.
Under the proposal, consumers will be entitled to individual redress when they are affected by unfair commercial practices, such as aggressive marketing techniques.
Once the fine has been imposed, the enforcement officer may order one of these remedies as an additional sanction.
Thus, consumers affected by unfair commercial practices are entitled to remedies to eliminate all the effects of those unfair practices, as follows:
(a) repair, replacement, price reduction or termination of the contract and the return of the consideration for the product or service, as appropriate;
(b) compensation for the harm suffered by the consumer.
In the event of failure to comply with these measures, if the act has resulted in serious and repeated damage to the rights of one or more consumers under this law, the trader may be fined between 1% and 4% of the annual turnover achieved in Romania.
New misleading practices are defined
The provision of results in response to an online search by a consumer, without clearly mentioning the existence of any paid advertising or any specific payment to ensure a higher ranking of products in the search results, is also introduced as a misleading commercial practice. Thus, online platforms must indicate search results that contain “paid product placements”, where third parties pay for higher rankings, or “paid inclusion”, where third parties pay to be included in the search results.
Another deceptive practice will be the resale of tickets to consumers, where the retailer has purchased them using automated means to circumvent any imposed limitation on the number of tickets a person may purchase or any other rule applicable to ticket purchases.
Another will be the assertion that reviews of a product come from consumers who have actually used or purchased the product, without taking reasonable and proportionate steps to verify that such reviews come from those consumers.
It is also defined as a misleading practice to present or instruct another legal or natural person to present false reviews or recommendations as coming from consumers or to misleadingly present consumer reviews or recommendations on social media platforms to promote certain products.
The ordinance also provides for greater transparency for consumers in online marketplaces.
The draft introduces into GEO 34/2014 on consumer rights in contracts with professionals and for amending and supplementing certain regulatory acts additional information requirements requiring online marketplaces to clearly inform consumers about: the main parameters that determine the ranking of offers, whether the contract is with a trader or a natural person, whether consumer protection law applies and who the trader (third party supplier or online marketplace) is responsible for enforcing consumer rights related to the contract (such as right of withdrawal or legal guarantee).
The regulation also extends consumer protection to digital services – the proposal extends the scope of GEO 34/2014 to digital services for which consumers do not pay but provide personal data, such as cloud storage, social media platforms and email accounts.