TRADE PRACTICES
On 30 November 2010, Ms Liesbeth Van der Auwera of the Flemish Christian-Democratic Party (CD&V) introduced a Bill in the Chamber of Representatives to amend the Law of 6 April 2010 on Market Practices and Consumer Protection (the "Law") in view of combating misleading business directories (Wetsvoorstel van 30 november 2010 tot wijziging van de Wet van 6 april 2010 betreffende Marktpraktijken en Consumentenbescherming met het oog op het bestrijden van reclameronselaars/Proposition de loi du 30 novembre 2010 modifiant la Loi du 6 avril 2010 relative aux pratiques du marché et à la protection du consommateur en vue de lutter contre les démarcheurs publicitaires – the "Bill").
Despite the existence of several legal instruments that can be relied upon to combat misleading business directories, such as the legal concepts of misconception (dwaling/erreur) and default (wanprestatie/inexécution), the Bill deems legislative action necessary to bring a halt to these misleading practices. In this regard, it refers to Austria where the introduction of an explicit prohibition on misleading business directories in the Austrian Law on Unfair Competition would have reduced significantly the number of infringements.
The Bill proposes to insert a new Article 97/1 in the Law which would prohibit any solicitation of advertisements in the business sphere in the form of an entry in a guide, directory, telephone directory or similar list or file if the following elements are not expressly indicated: (i) the fact that the solicitation constitutes an offer for a contract for valuable consideration; and (ii) the cost of the contract and its duration, which should be mentioned in bold and in the largest font size used in the document. Moreover, this prohibition would cover both direct solicitations of advertisements and solicitations by means of a payment form, order form, invoice, general terms and conditions, offer of correction or any similar form.
The Bill foresees fines for any infringement of the prohibition.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
