New consumer laws to hit auction sites

Auction sites like eBay may fall foul of new laws which make it illegal for traders to pretend they are consumers making a private sale, lawyers say.

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) and the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations (BPRs) came into force last week, implementing the EC Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. The CPRs affect businesses that deal with consumers, while the BPRs apply to business-to-business promotional practices. The Trade Descriptions Act 1968 which outlawed “false descriptions” of goods was swept aside.

Dai Davis, partner at Brooke North LLP, says the regulations impose a duty on trading standards officers to prosecute traders who make out they are private sellers. He says: “This legislation may catch eBay itself since the only defence that a trader will have is one of where the trader can show that the commission of the offence was due to information supplied by a third party and that he took ‘all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence’ to avoid committing the offence.”

The new rules, he says, are also designed to get tough on spammers, with persistent and unwanted advertisements sent by e-mail becoming a criminal offence.