Taking up the jurisprudential criterion which requires it, an unique system
for the Unfair Competition Act and the General Advertising Act is created for
actions and remedies against any commercial practice detrimental to the
economic interests of consumers, while not relinquishing specific regulation of
advertising and without impairing the special authority established in the
latter in connection with illicit advertising using a degrading or
discriminating image of women, ultimately repealing Part IV of the General
Advertising Act.
This legislation introduces major amendments into the Consumers and Users Protection
Act, making it clear that entrepreneurs’ commercial practices targeting
consumers are governed exclusively by it and the Unfair Competition Act, and
entrepreneurs or professionals cannot be made subject to obligations, demands
or prohibitions other than those in these provisions, although it does make
this general system compatible with a number of specific regulations, for
example in connection with financial services or real estate.
The Consumers and
Users Protection Act now includes the obligation to inform consumers of
commercial practices which include data on the features of the goods or service
and their price, enabling a consumer or user to reach a decision about
contracting it and, among other questions, specifically regulating price information
to adjust it further to the demands in the regulation on the information which
must be provided in commercial practice.
Finally, unfair commercial practice is classified as a consumer breach,
although this provision does not have effect in assigning or modifying
administrative jurisdiction attributed by state or regional regulation to other
public sector Administrations.
And Act No. 29/2009 amends the Retail Trade Organization Act to adjust
regulation on promotional selling to the provisions in the Directive,
maintaining the substantive regulation on the ordering of commercial activity,
with express reference to the Unfair Competition Act in dealing with its effect
upon the legitimate economic interests of consumers.