In this legal circular, we shall address the obligations of sellers in the labelling of goods. First and foremost, it must be said that there are many legal regulations governing the labelling of goods (particularly European ones, in view of which Czech legislation is also diverse), and these differ primarily depending on the nature of the goods being sold. European regulations separately regulate, in particular, the labelling of foodstuffs including spirits, footwear and textiles, tobacco products and hazardous substances. These are therefore products for which it was necessary, particularly for reasons of consumer protection, to adopt stricter legal regulation. Given the extensive amount of legislation, in this legal circular we shall focus rather on the general level, with reference to certain specific cases.

Within Czech legislation, the labelling of products is primarily governed by the provision of Section 10 of the Consumer Protection Act (zákon o ochraně spotřebitele). According to this provision, a seller must ensure that the products sold by him are directly visibly and comprehensibly marked with the identification of the manufacturer or importer, or alternatively the supplier, and if required by the nature of the product or the form of sale, then also with the name of the product, data on weight, quantity or size, or alternatively also dimension, and other data necessary according to the nature of the product for its identification or alternatively use.

Furthermore, the seller must describe the main characteristics of the goods being sold, the method of their use and maintenance, and also inform about the dangers arising from incorrect use or maintenance of the goods. The seller must also state the price of the goods; however, the question of stating prices is also addressed in more detail by further regulations. The Consumer Protection Act also permits the seller to provide all the above-mentioned information to the consumer also in the form of symbols (pictograms). However, these must be comprehensible, legible and complete. The seller is then obliged, upon request, to explain or suitably make accessible to the consumer the meaning of these pictograms. We emphasise that all these obligations concern sellers both in sales in brick-and-mortar shops and in sales in e-shops.

Although the legal regulation in this regard is not entirely unambiguous, we consider that the consumer must be informed of the above-mentioned facts before the conclusion of the contract of sale. All information required by law should therefore also be stated on websites containing an offer for the sale of goods, notwithstanding that they are available, for example, on the packaging of the goods. The consumer does not have the opportunity to familiarise himself with the packaging of the goods before purchasing them in the case of online shopping, and thus would lack essential information for making a qualified decision about the purchase.

For certain types of goods, the Consumer Protection Act then establishes additional obligations; for example, footwear must be marked with data on the materials used in their main parts, whilst the designation crystal may only be used to mark products that meet the prerequisites established by an implementing legal regulation.

We consider that many sellers may also be importers of goods, i.e. entrepreneurs who place on the market a product from another Member State of the European Union. We therefore take the liberty of drawing attention to the fact that such sellers/importers will, pursuant to a government regulation, in connection with the sale/import of certain electrical equipment, also be subject to the obligation to affix to the electrical equipment the CE marking. Furthermore, such traders are obliged to state their name and surname, business name, designation or trade mark, if he can be unambiguously identified by it, and also the address of the place at which he can be contacted. If the nature or dimensions of the product do not permit this, he may state this information on the packaging or in a document accompanying the electrical equipment. In this connection, we add that the same obligation applies in relation to electrical equipment also to the manufacturer. A distributor, i.e. a natural or legal person who, in the supply chain, is distinct from the manufacturer and importer, who supplies the product to the market, must then, before supplying it to the market, inter alia verify that these obligations have been fulfilled by the manufacturer and importer. Failing that, the distributor should ensure that the necessary corrective measures are taken and, until then, withdraw the product from sale.

In conclusion, we also draw attention to the fact that the identification of the manufacturer, importer or supplier should be such that it does not fulfil the characteristics of misleading commercial practices pursuant to the provisions of Sections 5 and 5a of the Consumer Protection Act. Therefore, the manufacturer, importer or supplier should be identified in such a way that he is not interchangeable with another, thus sufficiently specifically. We further draw attention to the fact that the seller must not remove or change the labelling of products or other data stated by the manufacturer, importer or supplier. If, therefore, it is stated on the goods, for example by the manufacturer, that this manufacturer has manufactured this product, then this information cannot be removed and the identification of the manufacturer on the product replaced by the identification of the importer or supplier.

Hana Drdová

This text was originally prepared by the law firm Mašek, Kočí, Aujezdský in cooperation with the association Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK) as legal circular No. 01/2024 intended for members of this association.

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