Consumer and User Protection Law

On the 4th of May, 2004, the Consumer and User Protection Law (LPCU) was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic, No. 37.930.

Annulment: The new LPCU annuls the law with identical denomination, the last version of which was published in the Extraordinary Official Gazette No. 4.898, dated May 17th, 1995, as well as any other norm that contradicts or collides with its provisions.

Effectiveness: The Law in reference came into effect on the 4th of May of the present year, with its publication in the Official Gazette.

Contents: The new LPCU establishes among its provisions, with a public order character in its totality and as a consequence not renounceable by means of an agreement, the regulation of the following subjects:

? The rights of the consumers and users.

? The contractual protection of the consumers and users.

? The regulation of the credit operations.

? Responsibility regime of the provider of goods and services, and,

? The National System of Protection to the Consumer which establishes among the norms that regulate the organization, competence, functioning, administrative illicit acts and sanctions applicable to the Autonomous Institute for the Defense and Education of the Consumer (INDECU), the felonies and sanctions and the Special Administrative Procedure and the conciliation and arbitrage mechanisms.

Among the innovative provisions of the Law are the following:

? The regulation of the mechanisms of protection in the electronic business, including the providers of goods and services dedicated to the electronic business.

? The nullity grounds of the adhesion contracts, that is, contracts without negotiations, among which we can find: the contractual stipulation of foreign currencies as a form of payment, the inclusion of arbitral or compromissary derogatory clauses of the jurisdiction and the establishment of special domiciles.

? The possibility of total or partial payments in advance of amounts due without the possibility of collection of commissions or imposition of sanctions, leaving to the consumer the election between the reduction of the amount of the fees and the reduction of the term of the contract.

? The right to receive compensations for damages, free repairs or reposition of the good or refund of the amount paid in determined cases, even without a previous agreement or guarantee.

? The specification between the services object to special observation in relation to the defense of the consumers and users in the activity of banks and other financial institutions, credit card operators, insurance companies, sale and supply of electric power, telephone services, waste collection, sale of gasoline and hydrocarbon byproducts, sale and rental of real estate, among others.