Polish IP & IT law – copyright trademark computer internet telecomm

Archive for: Directive 2005/29/EC

Consumer protection, case XVII Ama 118/04

March 24th, 2011, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Court of Competition and Consumer Protection in its judgment of 23 February 2006 case file XVII Ama 118/04 published in the Official Journal of President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection of 2006/2 p. 37, held that respect for others is considered as the essence of the concept of good customs in contractual relationships between business and consumers. Such respect should be expressed in proper information how the consumer could exercise its rights. The professionals and entrepreneurs should not to use their privileged position, and they should deal with the consumer as a partner in every agreement. Misinformation, confusion, misconception and the use of consumers’ ignorance or naivete were deemed contrary to good customs.

Polish regulations on unfair commercial practices

December 30th, 2007, Tomasz Rychlicki

The Act of 23 August 2007 on Combating Unfair Commercial Practices – CUCP – (in Polish: ustawa o przeciwdziałaniu nieuczciwym praktykom rynkowym) published in Journal of Laws (Dziennik Ustaw) No. 171, item 1206, came into force on 21 December 2007. It implemented the Directive 2005/29 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450, Directives 97/7, 98/27 and 2002/65 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (“Unfair Commercial Practices Directive”).

Among others things, it defines in article 5(1) misleading commercial practices as actions connected with introduction of products into the market which may lead to mistake as regards to products, its packaging, trade marks, trade names or other signs capable of identifying entrepreneurs, particularly comparative advertising.

The Act also deals with crypto-advertising which is defined as using commentary content in mass-media sources to promote a product where the business/entrepreneur paid for such action but it is not clearly indicated in the content, images or sounds and it is not easily identified by the consumer.

The Act also covers aggressive commercial practices. It defines such actions as (i) onerous processes which are not connected with consumers’ actions or (ii) desisting from acting, i.e. inducing the purchase of products via phone, fax, electronic mail or other means used to communicate in distance.