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| Consumer Guarantees Act | |
|---|---|
| Royal assent | 20 August 1993 |
| Commenced | 1 April 1994 |
| Status: Current legislation | |
The Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) 1993 is a consumer protection law that was enacted in New Zealand in 1993. Consumer protections were previously in the Sale of Goods Act 1908.
One of the CGA's biggest changes was that it extended protection to consumers for the supply of services. Another change was that the CGA explicitly outlawed a merchant from contracting out of the CGA, such as having a "no refunds" or "no returns" displayed. [1]
The CGA gives guarantees to free title, quality, fitness for purpose and price of consumer goods. The goods must also comply with description and with sample. If a good is faulty, the Act gives the retailer a reasonable time to either fix or replace the goods, otherwise the consumer has the right to reject the goods, cancel the contract, and obtain a full refund from the retailer. The legislation has now been amended to include online purchases from traders, including auction websites such as TradeMe [2] and Shopless.
The CGA gives guarantees of reasonable care and skill, of fitness for purpose, of completion, and of price for consumer services supplied.
The CGA does not apply to either commercial goods, or consumer good or services supplied for business purposes.
Caveat emptor is Latin for "Let the buyer beware". It has become a proverb in English. Generally, caveat emptor is the contract law principle that controls the sale of real property after the date of closing, but may also apply to sales of other goods. The phrase caveat emptor and its use as a disclaimer of warranties arises from the fact that buyers typically have less information than the seller about the good or service they are purchasing. This quality of the situation is known as 'information asymmetry'. Defects in the good or service may be hidden from the buyer, and only known to the seller.
An extended warranty, sometimes called a service agreement, a service contract, or a maintenance agreement, is a prolonged warranty offered to consumers in addition to the standard warranty on new items. The extended warranty may be offered by the warranty administrator, the retailer or the manufacturer. Extended warranties cost extra and for a percentage of the item's retail price. Occasionally, some extended warranties that are purchased for multiple years state in writing that during the first year, the consumer must still deal with the manufacturer in the occurrence of malfunction. Thus, what is often promoted as a five-year extended guarantee, for example, is actually only a four-year guarantee.
In law, a warranty is an expressed or implied promise or assurance of some kind. The term's meaning varies across legal subjects. In property law, it refers to a covenant by the grantor of a deed. In insurance law, it refers to a promise by the purchaser of an insurance about the thing or person to be insured.
In common law jurisdictions, an implied warranty is a contract law term for certain assurances that are presumed to be made in the sale of products or real property, due to the circumstances of the sale. These assurances are characterized as warranties regardless of whether the seller has expressly promised them orally or in writing. They include an implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose, an implied warranty of merchantability for products, implied warranty of workmanlike quality for services, and an implied warranty of habitability for a home.
The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia. Prior to 1 January 2011, it was known as the Trade Practices Act 1974 (TPA). The Act is the legislative vehicle for competition law in Australia, and seeks to promote competition, fair trading as well as providing protection for consumers. It is administered by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) and also gives some rights for private action. Schedule 2 of the CCA sets out the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The Federal Court of Australia has the jurisdiction to determine private and public complaints made in regard to contraventions of the Act.
The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that requires traders to provide services to a proper standard of workmanship. Furthermore, if a definite completion date or a price has not been fixed then the work must be completed within a reasonable time and for a reasonable charge. The Act was partially superseded by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, insofar as that Act applies, i.e. between trader and consumers, for contracts entered into from 1 October 2015. The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 as amended remains in force in England, Wales, Northern Ireland; only Part IA of the Act, which creates provisions analogous to Part I of the Act, and Part III, which deals with the Act's commencement etc., apply in Scotland.
The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulates contracts by restricting the operation and legality of some contract terms. It extends to nearly all forms of contract and one of its most important functions is limiting the applicability of disclaimers of liability. The terms extend to both actual contract terms and notices that are seen to constitute a contractual obligation.
The Consumer Protection Regulations 2000, SI 2000/2334, implemented European Directive 97/7/EC as UK law. They applied to contracts "concluded between a supplier and a consumer under an organised distance sales or services provision scheme run by the supplier who, for the purposes of the contract, makes use of one or more means of distance communication" up to and including the moment the contract is agreed. The legislation provided rights to the consumer and obligations which the seller must fulfill.
The Sale of Goods Act 1979 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulated English contract law and UK commercial law in respect of goods that are sold and bought. The Act consolidated the original Sale of Goods Act 1893 and subsequent legislation, which in turn had codified and consolidated the law. Since 1979, there have been numerous minor statutory amendments and additions to the 1979 act. It was replaced for some aspects of consumer contracts from 1 October 2015 by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 but remains the primary legislation underpinning business-to-business transactions involving selling or buying goods.
A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as they are peripheral to the objectives of the contract.
The Commerce Commission is a New Zealand government agency with responsibility for enforcing legislation that relates to competition in the country's markets, fair trading and consumer credit contracts, and regulatory responsibility for areas such as electricity and gas, telecommunications, dairy products and airports. It is an independent Crown entity established under the Commerce Act 1986. Although responsible to the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and the Minister of Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media, the Commission is run independently from the government, and is intended to be an impartial promotor and enforcer of the law.
English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the Industrial Revolution, it shares a heritage with countries across the Commonwealth, from membership in the European Union, continuing membership in Unidroit, and to a lesser extent the United States. Any agreement that is enforceable in court is a contract. A contract is a voluntary obligation, contrasting to the duty to not violate others rights in tort or unjust enrichment. English law places a high value on ensuring people have truly consented to the deals that bind them in court, so long as they comply with statutory and human rights.
Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent businesses from engaging in fraud or specified unfair practices to gain an advantage over competitors or to mislead consumers. They may also provide additional protection for the general public which may be impacted by a product even when they are not the direct purchaser or consumer of that product. For example, government regulations may require businesses to disclose detailed information about their products—particularly in areas where public health or safety is an issue, such as with food or automobiles.
Contractual terms in English law is a topic which deals with four main issues.
In English law, implied terms are default rules for contracts on points where the terms which contracting parties expressly choose are silent, or mandatory rules which operate to override terms that the parties may have themselves chosen. The purpose of implied terms is often to supplement a contractual agreement in the interest of making the deal effective for the purpose of business, to achieve fairness between the parties or to relieve hardship.
The Australian Consumer Law (ACL), being Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, is uniform legislation for consumer protection, applying as a law of the Commonwealth of Australia and is incorporated into the law of each of Australia's states and territories. The law commenced on 1 January 2011, replacing 20 different consumer laws across the Commonwealth and the states and territories, although certain other Acts continue to be in force.
The Fair Trading Act 1986 is a statute of New Zealand, developed as complementary legislation to the Commerce Act 1986. Its purpose is to encourage competition and to protect consumers/customers from misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair trade practices.
Unfair terms in English contract law are regulated under three major pieces of legislation, compliance with which is enforced by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 is the first main Act, which covers some contracts that have exclusion and limitation clauses. For example, it will not extend to cover contracts which are mentioned in Schedule I, consumer contracts, and international supply contracts. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 replaced the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 and bolstered further requirements for consumer contracts. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 concerns certain sales practices.
In consumer rights legislation and practice, a cooling-off period is a period of time following a purchase when the purchaser may choose to cancel a purchase, and return goods which have been supplied, for any reason, and obtain a full refund.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which consolidates existing consumer protection law legislation and also gives consumers a number of new rights and remedies. Provisions for secondary ticketing and lettings came into force on 27 May 2015, and provisions for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) came into force on 9 July 2015 as per the EU Directive on consumer ADR. Most other provisions came into force on 1 October 2015.