Consumer Authority sets its sights on Internet commerce and the travel sector in 2007
Today the State Secretary of Economic Affairs Karien van Gennip gave the official starting signal for the Consumer Authority. This new division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs will ensure that companies comply with the rules that are intended to protect consumers. "Our mission is to promote fair trade between businesses and consumers", says Marije Hulshof of the Consumer Authority.
The Consumer Authority officially presented today its agenda for 2007. Its main areas of focus will be unfair clauses in contract terms, Internet commerce, the travel sector, misleading lotteries and prize draws, and guarantees. Back in September last year interested parties were consulted about these areas and the Consumer Authority's agenda for 2007 has been drawn up based on their responses.
Since 1 January the Consumer Authority has had the powers to enforce the law. These tasks ensue from the Consumer Protection (Enforcement) Act which was adopted in November 2006. This Act lays down the three principal tasks:
- enforcement of the rules of consumer law in national and cross-border cases;
- coordination of cross-border requests for assistance from other European enforcement authorities;
- proper provision of information to consumers and providers.
State Secretary Van Gennip has set up the Consumer Authority following a European regulation which aims to tackle cross-border infringements. The Consumer Authority may act if a group of consumers have fallen victim to the conduct of a provider that is not in accordance with the rules. In the event of these 'collective infringements' of consumer rights, the new watchdog can take action such as imposing fines or penalties on a daily basis. For individual disputes with a provider, the consumer can still apply to organisations such as dispute resolution boards.
In carrying out its tasks the Consumer Authority will work closely with other parties such as consumer and sector organisations and other enforcement authorities such as OPTA, the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) and the Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and foreign enforcement authorities. An important source of information for the Consumer Authority is ConsuWijzer, the telephone and online source of information about consumer rights and obligations which the Consumer Authority together with OPTA and the NMa started up in October 2006.