The government of UAE has repealed the old Consumer Protection Law, i.e. Federal Law No. 24 of 2006 and has introduced a new law in place of it, in order to yield a far reaching mechanism for the protection of the consumers. The new law was introduced on November 10^th, 2020, namely, Federal Law No. 15 of 2020. In today’s era, almost everyone is acquainted with the e-commerce service providers and have been resorting to such e-commerce platforms for literally everything. Due to the popularity enjoyed by these e-commerce service providers, they are now covered under the ambit of the New consumer protection law. A concern can be also seen, with respect to the privacy of the information of the consumers which was earlier be used by the businesses in order to promote their products and for other marketing purposes. The article by Civil Lawyers of Dubai will herein discuss the changes in the new consumer protection law.

The major changes that are brought in through the Amendment are:

• Suppliers:

The term “ Supplier” has been given wide connotation, so as to include all the parties who belong to any level of the life cycle of the product or service.

• Privacy of the Consumer:

For the very first time, the government has introduced the concept of prevention of Consumer’s privacy from the unauthorized use of the data. Article 4(5) of the law has introduced the privacy of the consumers along with their data security. It is a liability of the suppliers and the businesses now to protect the data of their customers and safeguard their religious values, customs and traditions while dealing with them.

Owing to this new law, a need has been realized on the part of businesses to make the investment in the technological systems and protect their databases in order to make sure that all the requisites are complied with and no penalty will be accrued for the same.

• E – Commerce Service Providers

The concept of the E-commerce service providers was missing in the old law. The application of the Consumer Protection Law has been also enlarged in terms of its application. It means that now the law includes all the goods and services provided within the boundaries of UAE, in both, the mainland and the free-zones. In addition to this the act also includes those services which are registered in UAE. The e-commerce markets have been on a rise from last couple of years as a result of which there was a need realized for safeguarding the consumers from these types of markets and specially when the consumers are increasingly relying on them during the pandemic.

The government has also added Article 25 to the new law which provides that the services or the goods that are provided by the e-commerce service providers shall provide with the following information on their product in Arabic language: Name of the company, legal status, details of the licensing authority, their address, their license and sufficient information along with the specifications of the product and agreement of the contract if any.

• Documents in Arabic

The article 8 of the consumer protection law provides that the supplier must produce an invoice of the transaction in Arabic along with any other language totally depending upon his own discretion. Not only this, the data with respect to the advertising of the product, the contracts with other suppliers or with the consumers and the provisions of sale must compulsorily be in Arabic along with any other language. The punishment owing to this provision is a minimum fine of AED 2,000 which can be increased till AED 200,000 along with a risk of imprisonment for not less than 6 months. The Ministry of economy can even double the punishment if such breach are repeated continuously.

Harsh punishments

The government has increased the penalties in the offenses under this act. Businesses undertaking the way of misleading advertisements can be punished with a fine of at-least AED10,000 which can be increased up to AED 2,000,000 along with a risk of imprisonment for up to 2 years. In case where the product or the services provided by the suppliers are defected, then in such a case the supplier is supposed to either repair or replace the good or re-provide the services at free cost.

Summary:

Since the world is swiftly moving towards the digital society, the current changes in the Consumer Protection Law are fully justifying the developments with respect to the same. The rights of the consumers have been established firmly by the UAE Ministry of Economy. Moreover by the means of this enactment, the ministry has repeatedly entrenched the importance of Consumer’s Data protection and privacy. The consumers cannot be exploited by the suppliers anymore as their rights and powers have been deterred through the strict penalties of the new Consumer Protection Law. This is one of the ways to ensure compliance of the new laws by various stakeholders too. The legislation to execute the new law is still awaited in order to look at the development and working of the law, which is to be passed through a cabinet resolution.