Since May 28, 2022, new rules resulting from the European Omnibus Directive aim to protect consumers by prohibiting inflated crossed out prices and false customer reviews on merchant sites.
Better protect consumers who buy on the Internet: this is the objective of theorder of December 22, 2021 which has just entered into force on May 28, 2022, transposing into French law the European directive 2019/2161 known as Omnibus of November 27, 2019. The new regulations aim to fight more effectively against the – too many – abuses and insidious and misleading practices of marketplaces and e-commerce sites, in particular false promotions referring to inflated reference prices, false user reviews or even disguised partnerships by imposing information obligations and reinforcing the arsenal of associated sanctions. Clearly, it is a question of cleaning up the market by modernizing and reinforcing consumer protection online, which no one will complain about.
The end of inflated reference prices
The new rules are clear. No more false discounts based on inflated crossed out prices, when they are not fictitious! From now on, the reduction applied to a product (whether sales, promotions, private sales or operations of the Black Friday or Cyber Monday type) must take as reference price the lowest price practiced by sign within 30 days of the start of the promotion. It will no longer be possible to inflate prices a few days before the promotional period, only to display a staggering reduction, as we still see too often.
Otherwise, offenders are liable to a penalty of two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 for deceptive commercial practices. It should be noted, however, that these new rules suffer from a few exceptions and therefore do not apply in certain cases. Thus, in case of “successive price reductions during a specified period” (during sales), the reference price indicated will be the lowest before the first reduction. Moreover, these constraints do not apply to perishable foodstuffs threatened with rapid spoilage, nor to operations where the professional compares his prices with those charged by competitors.
The obligation to verify user reviews
Another sensitive point because characteristic of an intention to deliberately deceive the consumer: false opinions, most often laudatory, encouraging them to buy a product. A practice that is unfortunately quasi-industrial today! The sites concerned will now have to take measures to verify that customers who leave a review on a product have indeed purchased it. Bad news also for true-false online price and service comparators, they now have an obligation to inform the Internet user when a product (or service) presented during a search has benefited from a better ranking thanks to remuneration from the manufacturer. They will also have to warn their customers, if necessary, that they are likely to charge individualized prices (most often determined by an algorithm) according to their consumption habits and the searches carried out online.
It should be noted, in a more specific register, that the deceptive commercial practice is also extended to the fact of reselling tickets for events to consumers when the professional has acquired them using an automated means allowing him to circumvent any limit imposed on the number of tickets that a person may purchase or any prohibition on the purchase of tickets. In the event of non-compliance with its obligation to provide information on the existence and terms of the legal guarantees of conformity of a product, any commercial guarantees and, where applicable, after-sales service, the professional is liable to a fine of €3,000 to €15,000 for a natural person and €15,000 to €75,000 for a legal person.
Last point: marketplaces (marketplaces) are now required to indicate to the consumer whether the seller is a professional (or a private individual) and whether there are capital links between them and the merchant concerned. This is to enhance the transparency of activities and commercial relations so that the consumer makes his purchases in full knowledge of the facts.
Fines and dissuasive sanctions in the event of an infringement
Finally, the new legislative and regulatory framework which entered into force on May 28, 2022 is also intended, and perhaps above all, to be dissuasive, to eradicate the excesses of online commerce within the member countries of the European Union. As a result, the repressive aspect is reinforced. Thus, the professional resorting to unfair and misleading commercial practices now risks a fine of 300,000 euros, the amount of which may be increased to 4% of his turnover in the following cases: if he is establishes that it uses its practices, not on an exceptional basis, but on an ongoing basis, and whether these practices constitute “of a widespread or widespread European Union-wide infringement”.