The Government Bill, which is intended to significantly amend the provisions of the Civil Code and the Consumer Protection Act, on which APEK is providing extensive information to its members, is also to bring substantial changes to the scope of supervisory activities of the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (the same scope of this power is to be established for municipal trade licensing offices). Given that traders encounter inspections by the ČOI very frequently in practice, we believe it is appropriate to pay attention to this issue as well.

What specifically is to change? Currently, the ČOI exercises supervision only over compliance with obligations established by the Consumer Protection Act. Whilst certain obligations established by the Consumer Protection Act have some overlap into the private law sphere (for example, the obligation to inform consumers about the scope of rights arising from liability for defects), compliance with most obligations arising from the provisions of so-called consumer contracts in the Civil Code by traders is not subject to this supervision. ‘Sanctions’ for their potential non-compliance are thus ‘only’ of a private law nature, whereby as a result of such breach there occurs, for example, an extension of the period for withdrawal from the contract by the consumer without stating a reason, etc. However, this situation is to change substantially with the adoption of the amendment, whereby the Czech Trade Inspection Authority is to be newly established with the power to inspect compliance with certain provisions of the Civil Code serving to protect consumers. Which provisions specifically are these to be?

One of the areas which the ČOI will be able to newly inspect is the fulfilment of information obligations by traders before concluding a contract with a consumer (particularly pursuant to Section 1811, Section 1820, Section 1824 or Section 1826 of the Civil Code). The form and scope of these information obligations are also to undergo changes within the amendment; however, their scope is already considerable at present. In this connection, it is appropriate to point out that the information obligations pursuant to the provisions of Section 1811 of the Civil Code apply to all entrepreneurs offering goods or services to consumers, regardless of whether they do so on the internet or not (these information obligations thus also apply to sellers in brick-and-mortar establishments).

Inspections by the ČOI are also to be subject to situations which can now be encountered relatively frequently in practice, where a trader automatically adds products or services to a consumer’s basket (the provisions of Section 1817 of the Civil Code in its new form). The ČOI is also to have the possibility of inspecting compliance with the newly formulated obligation to issue ‘confirmation of the concluded contract to the consumer in text form’ and the obligation to mark the order button with an easily legible inscription ‘order with obligation to pay’ or another corresponding unambiguous formulation (pursuant to the provisions of Section 1826a of the Civil Code in its new form). Last but not least, this will concern compliance with obligations in the area of prompt confirmation of receipt of an order (Section 1827 of the Civil Code) and prompt confirmation of receipt of withdrawal from the contract made to the trader via an on-line form (Section 1830(2) of the Civil Code).

With substantial delay, the power of the ČOI in the area of supervision over compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/302 on addressing unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers’ nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market is also to be established.

Josef Aujezdský

This text was originally prepared by the law firm Mašek, Kočí, Aujezdský in cooperation with the Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK) as legal newsletter No. 05/2022 intended for members of this association.

This text was translated from Czech to English using an AI translator.