Promotions, fake reviews, canvassing: stricter regulation comes into force

Abusive promotions, false notices on the internet or door-to-door canvassing: a European directive comes into force on Saturday in France to better regulate certain commercial practices. Adopted in November 2019 by the European Parliament and the European Council, the so-called “Omnibus” directive is officially implemented on Saturday in all the States of the European Union.

“Europe is taking the lead in increased regulation of marketplaces and e-commerce sites. Many American companies operating in Europe will have to follow suit,” said John Hornell, vice president of Pasabi, a company that offers authentication solutions for online businesses.

In France, the directive was transposed by an ordinance in December 2021. Among the measures provided for, the regulations require marketplaces in online commerce to verify that the notices published under the products offered for sale have indeed been issued by people who have purchased the product in question.

They will also have to provide certain additional information to the consumer, such as the existence of a "capital link" between the seller and the marketplace, or request the consumer's consent when the right of withdrawal does not apply.

In addition, to combat excessive price reduction announcements, calculated from inflated reference prices, merchants will have to display the reference price from which the reduction is calculated. This must correspond to “the lowest price charged by the professional to all consumers over the last thirty days”, according to the order of December 23, 2021.

Sanctions are also reinforced in the event of breach of certain legal information obligations or in the event of abusive clauses in contracts. In the event of a "large-scale infringement", it may reach 4% of the turnover of the target company.

The ordinance which comes into force on Saturday also prohibits visits by home sellers if the consumer “has clearly and unambiguously expressed that he does not want to be the subject of such a visit”. In the event of a breach of this rule, the seller may be punished by one year's imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros.