Unfair Commercial Practices - EU directive
Last updated 20/05/2008: any recent updates in this colour.
The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 11 June 2005. This means that the Directive came into force on 12 June 2005 and must be transposed into UK law by 12 June 2007. Regulations bringing it into effect in the UK were due to come into effect by April 2008: the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (SI 2008 No 1277) were approved in Parliament on 8 May 2008 and are due to come into effect on 26 May 2008.
The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has a webpage which provides information on the progress of the Directive. BERR has published a booklet explaining the new regulations.
What does the Directive aim to do?
The Directive aims to:
- Ban pressure selling and misleading marketing.
- Harmonise member states' rules on unfair commercial practices.
- Clarify consumers' rights and give them the same protection, whether they buy from the shop around the corner or from a website of a company based in another member state.
- Facilitate cross-border trade by establishing EU-wide rules against aggressive or misleading business-to-consumer marketing.
