The Consumer Protection (Cancellation of Contracts Concluded away from Business Premises) (Amendment) Regulations 1998

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Consumer Protection (Cancellation of Contracts Concluded away from Business Premises) Regulations 1987 (the “principal Regulations”). In doing so, they modify the implementation in the United Kingdom of Council Directive 85/577/EEC, adopted to protect the consumer in respect of contracts negotiated away from business premises (OJ No. L372, 31.12.1985, p. 31).

These Regulations amend the definition of “unsolicited visit” which applies for the purposes of regulation 3 of the principal regulations so that a visit by a trader is considered to be unsolicited if it follows an earlier unsolicited visit during which he, or someone acting in his name or on his behalf, indicated that he, or the trader in whose name or on whose behalf he was acting, was prepared to make a subsequent visit to the consumer. The definition is also amended to make it clear that it covers a visit following an unsolicited telephone call where the person who visits the consumer is not the same as the person who made the telephone call, but the person who made the telephone call was acting in his name or on his behalf.

The Regulations also amend the principal Regulations to create an offence which is committed by a trader who enters into a contract to which the principal Regulations apply without giving the consumer written notice of his right to cancel that contract, together with a cancellation form for that purpose, in accordance with those Regulations. The principal Regulations are amended to provide for a due diligence defence and for liability of persons other than the principal offender in a number of specified circumstances.

In relation to the new offence, the principal Regulations are amended to impose a duty to enforce on weights and measures authorities in Great Britain and on the Department of Economic Development in Northern Ireland. Authorised officers of these authorities are given qualified rights to require the production of information and to seize and detain evidence. The principal Regulations are amended to create offences relating to the obstruction of authorised officers and the making of false statements.

Finally, the principal Regulations are amended to provide for an offence of disclosing information obtained in the exercise of functions under the enforcement provisions. The offence is subject to various exceptions, which allow for the disclosure of information in particular circumstances.

A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the costs and benefits which will result from these Regulations has been prepared by the Department of Trade and Industry and is available from the Consumer Affairs Directorate, Department of Trade and Industry, Room 622, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET (Telephone [phone]). Copies have been placed in the libraries of both Houses of Parliament.