In this legal circular, we shall briefly address fees charged by sellers to consumers in connection with the payment method used, the regulation of which was introduced into Act No. 634/1992 Coll., on Consumer Protection, as amended (hereinafter the “Consumer Protection Act”) by Amendment No. 303/2013 Coll., which amends certain acts in connection with the adoption of the recodification of private law, effective from 1 January 2014.

This new regulation implements Article 19 of Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights. This Directive imposes on Member States the obligation to prohibit traders from charging consumers, in respect of the use of a given means of payment, fees that exceed the cost borne by the trader for the use of that means of payment. The said provision is also closely related to Article 52(3) of Directive 2007/64/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on payment services in the internal market, where it is proposed (with regard to the need to support competitiveness and facilitate the use of efficient payment instruments) to prohibit or restrict the requirement of fees from consumers related to the payment instrument used.

The specific national regulation of this matter is found in the new provision of Section 3(2) of the Consumer Protection Act, which stipulates that the seller must not require from the consumer, in connection with the payment method used, a fee exceeding the costs incurred by the seller in connection with this payment method. Within the meaning of this provision, this shall primarily concern a fee associated with payment of the purchase price by payment card or purchase by cash on delivery. As follows from the above, the seller must not charge the consumer an amount higher than actually expended on this payment method, and thus must not add a “surcharge” to this actually expended amount.

Supervision over compliance with this obligation is entrusted by Section 23(1) of the Consumer Protection Act to the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce), which is authorised to issue binding instructions for the removal of identified deficiencies. Furthermore, pursuant to Section 24(7) of the Consumer Protection Act, the seller commits an administrative offence if it fails to fulfil the obligation of fair sale of products or provision of services according to the aforementioned Section 3 of the Consumer Protection Act, and for this administrative offence a fine of up to 5 million Czech crowns may be imposed on the seller.

As follows from the above, sellers should bring the fees charged to consumers into compliance with the current wording of the Consumer Protection Act, primarily in order to avoid potential sanctions by the Czech Trade Inspection Authority.

Barbora Chvalinová

Law Firm Mašek, Kočí, Aujezdský www.e-Advokacie.cz – on-line legal advisory services

This text was originally prepared by the law firm Mašek, Kočí, Aujezdský in cooperation with the Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK) as legal circular No. 1/2014 intended for members of this association.

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