New regulations for claiming compensation
The opportunity for consumers to be able to take on businesses that they believe have treated them unfairly and seek compensation in court could now be stepped up. This is because new regulations have now come into force that will give people in the UK more protection.
The new regulations will allow agencies such as the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), but not individuals to take action against businesses who are trading in a unfair manner. The government now wants the Law Commission to review the legal issues for the private redress. The introduction of the new regulations will be able to help those who want to take businesses to the civil courts to ask for compensation. This could cover a wide range of issues such as misleading statements by estate agents to aggressive sales practices or even debt collection.
The National Consumer Council (also known as NCC) welcomes the new consumer protection regulations, but said that unlike Ireland, it lacked a way for consumers to seek compensation when businesses acted in a unfair manner. It also says in the Trade Descriptions act to allow a judge under criminal law, to order compensation for a victim of an offence. However the more wide ranging consumer protection regulations do not allow consumers to seek compensation from trading standards departments or the OFT that takes the court action.
A spokesperson from the National Consumer Council said:
"The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has failed to give consumers the tools they need to benefit from the broad scope of the regulations."
However the government department says that consumers can already seek compensation through common law for most issues in the new regulations. And the new regulations are the biggest shake-up in consumer law in forty years.
Updated on 23/06/2008