Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts: a new approach?

19 Mar 2013

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts: a new approach?

On request from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Scottish Law Commission, jointly with the Law Commission for England and Wales, has advised on the reform of unfair terms legislation as it affects consumer contracts.  The Advice, published today, also updates the recommendations made in our 2005 Report on Unfair Terms in Contracts, in so far as they affect contracts made between businesses and consumers. A Summary is also available.

The Advice recommends reform of the exemption for main subject matter and price set out in Regulation 6(2) of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, along with reform of the grey list contained in Schedule 2 of the Regulations. We recommend that the Unfair Terms Directive should be copied out into the law of the UK rather than rewritten, subject to specific recommendations made elsewhere in the Advice. We also advise that the new Consumer Bill of Rights should replicate the substance of the provisions currently contained in the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 concerning terms and notices which purport to exclude or restrict a trader’s liability for causing death or personal injury resulting from negligence or breach of duty.  Further, we recommend that UCTA should no longer regulate business to consumer contracts, even if it is a business dealing as a consumer, following consolidation of consumer provisions in the new Consumer Bill of Rights.

The Advice and Summary can be viewed on our project page.