elsewhere

This page deals with consumer protection regimes in New Zealand and elsewhere.

It covers -

• UK
• New Zealand legislation

     UK 

Salient works on the UK regime are Consumer Protection and the Criminal Law: Law, Theory, and Policy in the UK (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2001) by Peter Cartwright and The Law of Consumer Protection and Fair Trading (London: Butterworths 2000) by Brian Harvey & Deborah Parry

     New Zealand 

The New Zealand consumer protection regime centres on the Commerce Act, the Fair Trading Act 1986 (FTA) - substantially based on Part V of the Australian TPA - and the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA), based on pre-1993 New Zealand case law and Saskatchewan consumer protection legislation.

The NZ regime emphasises consumers taking action on their own behalf. The Commerce Commission has enforcement responsibilities regarding the FTA but resource stringencies and priorities means that it investigates only a small percentage of complaints. As with the ACCC in Australia, in action by the Commerce Commission against traders the primary objective may be not be to secure redress for individual consumers.

No agency is responsible for enforcing the CGA. As a result, when a consumer does not get what they expect from a transaction or when a transaction goes wrong, they are largely responsible for pursuing their own remedy. Consumers may decide that it is not worth their while trying to put a transaction right. This may occur, for example, when the price paid for merchandise is low or when a consumer decides that the best course of action is to avoid a similar transaction in future and therefore "vote with their feet" (for example, they decide not to return to a restaurant where they were dissatisfied with service). Where consumers decide to take action, they are required in the first instance to seek redress from the business.

If consumers cannot resolve disagreements with a business they are encouraged to contact a trade association (assuming that the enterprise is a member of such an association and bound by any code), the Disputes Tribunal or a specific complaints body (eg the Electricity & Gas Complaints Commissioner).

Consumers can in principle take disputes to the District Court. In practice the costs associated with such litigation mean that it is unusual for consumers to seek redress in the courts, with litigation involving consumer protection statutes instead typically involving the Commerce Commission or businesses.





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