The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is an Act of

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

that consolidates existing

consumer protection law Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...

legislation and also gives consumers a number of new rights and remedies. Provisions for secondary ticketing and lettings came into force on 27 May 2015, and provisions for

alternative dispute resolution Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for ...

(ADR) came into force on 9 July 2015 as per the EU Directive on consumer ADR. Most other provisions came into force on 1 October 2015. In respect of contracts under which a trader provides goods or services to a consumer, the Act replaces the

Sale of Goods Act Sale of Goods Acts (with variations) regulate the sale of goods in several legal jurisdictions including Malaysia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the common law provinces of Canada. The Bill for an Act with this short title will have been kn ...

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999SI 1999/2083 is an old UK statutory instrument, which had implemented the EU (then EEC) Unfair Consumer Contract Terms Directivebr>93/13/EECinto domestic law.Implemented under the European C ...

and the

Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982c 29 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that requires traders to provide services to a proper standard of workmanship ("''with reasonable care and skill''"). Furthermore, if a definite compl ...

, making some changes to rights to return faulty goods for refund, replacement or repair, and adding new rights on the purchase of digital content. The Act is split into three parts: *Part 1 concerns consumer contracts for goods,

digital content Digital content is any content that exists in the form of digital data. Also known as digital media, digital content is stored on digital or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally broad ...

and services. *Part 2 concerns unfair terms. *Part 3 concerns other miscellaneous provisions.

Background

The Act was introduced to parliament by

Jo Swinson Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British Liberal Democrat politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 22 July to 13 December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well a ...

MP, then parliamentary under-Secretary in the

Department of Business, Innovation and Skills , type = Department , logo = Department for Business, Innovation and Skills logo.svg , logo_width = 200px , logo_caption = , picture = File:Лондан. 2014. Жнівень 26.JPG , seal = , se ...

, on 23 January 2014 with the aim of consolidating and updating

and to therefore provide a "modern framework of consumer rights." Among the pieces of legislation that have been combined into the Consumer Rights Act are, most notably: *

Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977c 50 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulates contracts by restricting the operation and legality of some contract terms. It extends to nearly all forms of contract and one of its most impo ...

Sale of Goods Act 1979 The Sale of Goods Act 1979c 54 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulated English contract law and UK commercial law in respect of goods that are sold and bought. The Act consolidated the original Sale of Goods Act 1893 ...

Definitions

Section 2 lays out the key definitions pertinent to the Act: *A 'consumer' is "an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual's trade, business, craft or profession." This extends beyond any previous definition in UK or

EU law European Union law is a system of rules operating within the member states of the European Union (EU). Since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community following World War II, the EU has developed the aim to "promote peace, its val ...

as it includes contracts that are entered into for a combination of personal and business reasons. *A 'trader' is defined as "a person acting for purposes relating to that person's trade, business, craft or profession, whether acting personally or through another person acting in the trader's name or on the trader's behalf." *'Business' is taken to include "the activities of any government department or local or public authority." *'Goods' are "any tangible moveable items, but that includes water, gas and electricity if and only if they are put up for supply in a limited volume or set quantity." *'Digital content' means "data which are produced and supplied in digital form."

Part 1

Goods

The Act requires goods to be: *Of satisfactory quality. *Fit for the consumer's particular purpose. *As described. Previously, defective goods had to be rejected within a 'reasonable period', but the Act now gives consumers a minimum of 30 days in which they can reject goods that fail to conform to the contract.

Digital content

Digital content includes not only content that is supplied for a price, but also

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (o ...

software. The requirements are identical to those of goods, stated above.Chapter 3, Consumer Rights Act 2015
/ref> The main difference is that there is no right to reject digital content, but rather the remedies include the right to repair or replacement, the right to a price reduction and the right to a refund. The trader is now liable for damage caused to a device by supplied digital content where they fail to exercise reasonable care and skill. Consumers may also pursue other traditional remedies such as

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

and

specific performance Specific performance is an equitable remedy in the law of contract, whereby a court issues an order requiring a party to perform a specific act, such as to complete performance of the contract. It is typically available in the sale of land law, ...

Services

Services must be performed with "reasonable care and skill" and also "within a reasonable time". The Act also ensures that any statement a trader makes when a consumer is either deciding to enter into the contract or making a decision about the service after entering into the contract is now a binding contractual term. Previously such terms may only have given rise to an action in the tort of

misrepresentation In common law jurisdictions, a misrepresentation is a false or misleading '' R v Kylsant'' 931/ref> statement of fact made during negotiations by one party to another, the statement then inducing that other party to enter into a contract. The m ...

but now a claim may be brought for

breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...

. This means that a claimant's case will generally be easier to prove and

expectation damages Expectation damages are damages recoverable from a breach of contract by the non-breaching party. An award of expectation damages protects the injured party's interest in realising the value of the expectancy that was created by the promise of the ...

may be awarded rather than compensation based on the principle of

restitutio ad integrum ''Restitutio ad integrum'', or ''restitutio in integrum'', is a Latin term that means "restoration to original condition". It is one of the primary guiding principles behind the awarding of damages in common law negligence claims. In European pate ...

. On top of the usual remedies consumers now also have the right to repeat performance and price reduction.

Part 2

Unfair terms

The definition of an 'unfair term' remains the same as that originally outlined in the

; i.e. a term is unfair if, "contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer." However, terms that express the main subject matter of the contract are not subject to this fairness test, provided that such terms are both transparent and prominent in the contract. The Act also adds to the so-called 'grey list' that lists a non-exhaustive range of terms which are, in most cases, likely to be considered unfair by the courts. These include: *Extortionate charges when a consumer decides to cancel a contract. *Allowing the trader to make decisions about the characteristics of the subject matter after the contract had been concluded. *Giving the trader a mandate to vary the price after the consumer is already bound. Section 71 places a duty on the court to consider the fairness of contractual terms even where neither party raises the issue.

Part 3

Competition law

Schedule 8 amends the

Competition Act 1998 The Competition Act 1998 is the current major source of competition law in the United Kingdom, along with the Enterprise Act 2002. The act provides an updated framework for identifying and dealing with restrictive business practices and abuse o ...

and greatly expands the jurisdiction of the

Competition Appeal Tribunal The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) of the United Kingdom was created by Section 12 and Schedule 2 to the Enterprise Act 2002 which came into force on 1 April 2003. The Competition Service is an executive non-departmental public body which ...

, to the extent that it now has similar powers to the High Court. The Act also now provides for collective proceedings, a form of

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

, on an 'opt-out' basis on top of the present 'opt-in' system. There is also now a statutory scheme of voluntary redress in

competition law Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

, a form of

ADR ADR or adr may refer to: Computing * Asynchronous DRAM refresh, an approach for persistent memory found in some Intel Xeon processors * The adr microformat, part of the hCard microformat * Architectural decision record * Action–domain–respond ...

Duty of letting agents to publicise fees

Letting agent A letting agent is a facilitator through which an agreement is made between a landlord and tenant for the rental of a residential property. This is commonly used in countries using British English, including countries of the Commonwealth. In th ...

s are under a duty to display a list of fees in each of their offices in a prominent position. Such a list must include: *A description of each fee. *Whether the fee relates to each dwelling-house or each

tenant Tenant may refer to: Real estate *Tenant, the holder of a leasehold estate in real estate *Tenant-in-chief, in feudal land law *Tenement (law), the holder of a legal interest in real estate *Tenant farmer *Anchor tenant, one of the larger stores ...

under a tenancy of the dwelling-house. *The amount of each fee. The notice must also indicate that the agent is part of a redress scheme, and give its name.

Secondary ticketing

Anyone reselling tickets for an event must give the following information: *The seat (or standing area) that the ticket is for. *Any restrictions on the type of person who may use the ticket (e.g. age restrictions etc.). *The face value of the ticket. The event organiser may not cancel a ticket or blacklist a seller for reselling the ticket unless this right is contained within the original terms of the ticket.

Impact and reception

The official position is that it was hoped that by consolidating existing legislation the new Act would simplify consumer protection law for both consumers and businesses. Also, the government predicted that the Act would "boost the economy by £4 billion" over the course of the following decade.