Consumer Protection and the Criminal Law UK

Consumer right to safety is one of the earliest rights that has been recognised by the late President John F Kennedy in 1962, when he presented a speech to the American Congress. Later, this right had been recognised by the International Consumer Unions (presently known as the Consumers International). Presently, the consumer right to safety is one of the basic rights of the consumers that has been recognised universally, together with other basic rights, namely, the right to basic needs, the right to information, the right to choice, the right to redress, the right to be heard, the right to consumer education and the right to live in a clean environment. The objective of this article is to analyse the application of criminal liability in product safety legislations. This article will adopt the content analysis method by analysing the provisions of certain legislations to see the extent of the application of criminal liability in those adopted legislations. The findings of the research show that all of the studied legislations have adopted the strict criminal liability. The strict criminal liability offence is widely used as a means of deterring traders and producers from engaging in certain types of trading abuse which operate to the detriment of consumers. It is believed that the strict criminal liability can protect the consumers from unsafe products and uphold the consumer right to safe products.

Consumer right to safety is one of the earliest rights that has been recognised by the late President John F Kennedy in 1962, when he presented a speech to the American Congress. Later, this right had been recognised by the International Consumer Unions (presently known as the Consumers International). Presently, the consumer right to safety is one of the basic rights of the consumers that has been recognised universally, together with other basic rights, namely, the right to basic needs, the right to information, the right to choice, the right to redress, the right to be heard, the right to consumer education and the right to live in a clean environment. The objective of this article is to analyse the application of criminal liability in product safety legislations. This article will adopt the content analysis method by analysing the provisions of certain legislations to see the extent of the application of criminal liability in those adopted legislations. The findings of the research show that all of the studied legislations have adopted the strict criminal liability. The strict criminal liability offence is widely used as a means of deterring traders and producers from engaging in certain types of trading abuse which operate to the detriment of consumers. It is believed that the strict criminal liability can protect the consumers from unsafe products and uphold the consumer right to safe products.

This article shows that the UK has blended preventive and traditional UK criminal enforcement techniques to implement the UCPD; these techniques have been 'Europeanised' by the UCPD unfairness concepts; and the UCPD may also cause UK private law to be Europeanised in more 'spontaneous' ways. However, there are limits to this Europeanising effect. First of all, the 'home grown' financial services regime is likely to remain dominant, inter alia, because of the high standards of protection it sets and because of Article 3(9) of the UCPD, which exempts financial services from the full harmonisation principle. Secondly, judges may limit the extent of Europeanisation. The UCPD's European concepts of fairness often have the potential to increase standards of protection relative to pre-existing UK law. However, these concepts are sufficiently open textured as to run the risk of being interpreted in non-protective ways, based on underlying UK judicial ethics of self-interest and self-reliance. So far, High Court judges have taken quite a protective approach to interpretation of the UCPD concepts. However, the full impact of the UCPD European fairness standards in the UK will only become clear when cases reach the appeal courts; and the ECJ more fully develops its approach.

International Criminal Justice Review, 2006

2009

2008

Law & Policy, 2009

This article deals with the question of how a high level of compliance with consumer protection legislation designed to prevent financial losses can be secured. We use a theoretical framework based on economic analysis of law to address some of the key policy options, such as proactive and reactive monitoring, providing officials with postdetection enforcement discretion, administrative, civil, and criminal sanctions, and facilitating actions by victims and third parties. On the basis of our theoretical framework and a classification of jurisdictions into different groups (models of enforcement policy), we identify some key elements of an enforcement regime and indicate in what circumstances a particular solution can be expected to be more or less cost effective.

Journal of Law and Society, 2005

Consumer policy increasingly places emphasis on the role of information in allowing consumers to protect themselves and promoting a competitive economy. Increasing the information available to consumers is undoubtedly beneficial, but this article cautions that the limitations of consumer protection though information also have to be recognized. In particular, emphasis is placed on the insights provided by behavioural economics which suggests that consumers may not always respond to information provided as rationally as traditional economic models sometimes assume. One implication of this is that the way information rules are framed needs to be revisited. Other consumer policy approaches (altering the default rules, using bans and regulations, and risk sharing) need to be considered alongside a strategy of information provision. To analyse which approach should be adopted or to find the appropriate balance between different approaches requires policy makers to engage more fully with the legal and consumer policy research community.

Journal of Consumer Policy, 1991

This paper examines the present state of Community product safety policy. It shows that important initiatives to extend enforcement practice across borders have come "from below" and argues that such developments deserve respect from Commtmity policy makers as evidence of responses to real problems, However, the paper argues that the Community needs to build on these existing examples of cross-border co-operation in order to establish a broader product safety policy and --more compelling given the current Commmaity agenda --in order to secure effective market integration. The paper concludes by contending that the development of product safety policy illustrates the shared approach to shaping the Community which should form the model for fnture progress.