The regulatory authority for Consumer Affairs has organised a conference on the occasion of the World Consumer Rights Day entitled Empowering Consumers in the digital and green transition. This comes hot on the heels of the latest suite of transpositions to give effect to a series of Consumer Related Directives i.e. referred to the “New Deal for Consumers”, a package of EU legislative measures consolidated in the Omnibus Directive (Enforcement and Modernisation Directive 2019/2161) and new Directives (New Sale of Goods Directive 2019/771 and the Digital Content and Digital Services Directive 2019/770 aimed at updating the previous consumer acquis with sector specific interventions to cater for goods with digital elements, digital content, digital services and their respective supply by traders within the EU.

These directives have locally resulted in updates to the Consumer Affairs Act, Chapter 378 of the Laws of Malta and subsidiary legislation made under it especially with the introduction of the new S.L. 378.20 Digital Content and Digital Services Contracts Regulations. The latter is especially of note to consumer facing traders offering goods with digital elements (defined as goods that  incorporate,  or  are  inter-connected  with, digital  content  or  a  digital  service  in  such  a  way  that  the absence of that digital content or digital service would prevent the goods from performing their functions), digital content (rather self-explanatory) and digital services. Specific attention should be made by traders which simply re-package or pass on such content or services from a third party provider and entering into specific warranties with the Maltese consumer or basing the promotion of such goods and services without securing the supply from the third party provider itself. These new regulations also apply to situations where the consumer “pays” for the free supply of digital content or services with “personal data” and this is a recognition of the long standing practice of monetising personal data, which has now finally also been recognised from a consumer protection perspective.

For more information on how the new package of consumer legislation may affect your business kindly get in touch on deo.falzon@fenechlaw.com