THE COMPETENCE OF THE CONSUMER RIGHTS PROTECTION CENTRE IN MAKING DECISIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF UNFAIR COMMERCIAL PRACTICE PROHIBITION LAW

Abstract

The theme of the paper “The Competence of the Consumer Rights Protection Centre in Making Decisions in the Context of Unfair Commercial Practice Prohibition Law” is topical, because as a governmental institution, Consumer Rights Protection Centre has limited functions and competence. For a proper implementation of all its functions the Consumer Rights Protection Centre should be able to investigate the cases of unfair commercial practice according to the Administrative Procedure Law. However, the existing regulations do not provide effi cient measures to a supervising institution in order to act against a commercial practice performer, who does not execute the decision of the institution and who created a substantial damage to the interests of consumers. The author of the paper concludes that currently the only legal instrument of a supervising institution to limit the actions of a violator of the unfair commercial practice prohibition act is a legal instruction to terminate the unfair commercial practice and the material fi nes imposed in accordance with the Latvian Administrative Violations Code. However, this is not suffi cient for the unfair commercial practice performer to stop violating the law. Also there are no instruments for a supervising institution to restrict the actions of unfair commercial practice performer, because a supervising institution can only impose a monetary fi ne in accordance with the Latvian Administrative Violations Code. On the other hand, the amendments to the Unfair Commercial Practice Prohibition Law, which have not entered into effect yet, provide broader rights to supervising institutions in order to prevent and limit the actions of unfair commercial practice performers by applying not only the legal instruction and substantially bigger fi nes, but also in case the violator does not fulfi l the decision made about the matter for a set period of time, thus causing substantial damage to collective interests of the consumers, the supervising institution will be entitled to close the webpage of the unfair commercial practice performer or even stop their economic activity for a certain period of time.