It is becoming increasingly common for consumers to make
cross-border purchases and consumers are offered goods with digital
content and digital services. Following the EU-directive (2019/771)
on certain aspects concerning contracts for the sale of goods and
directive (2019/770) on certain aspects concerning contracts for
the supply of digital content and digital services, the Swedish
government in 2019 initiated an inquiry in order to review Swedish
legislation in the area.
The final report is proposing that the current Swedish Consumer
Sales Act dating back to 1990, is replaced by a new act – the
Consumer Protection Act on purchases and certain other agreements.
The new act is supposed to apply to consumers' purchases of
goods, regardless of whether it takes place in a store or online.
Moreover, the new act would in contrast to the current act apply to
the purchase of digital content or digital services, for instance
when downloading music and movies.
It is also proposed that the new act would introduce several other
news. For instance, the new act proposes a provision meaning that
the buyer can turn to a third party (rather than the seller) who
has provided a warranty. If it is the manufacturer of the product
who has left the warranty, and the manufacturer has undertaken to
be responsible for the durability of the product for a certain
period of time, the consumer always has the right to demand that
the manufacturer remedy the defect or undertake redelivery.
Furthermore, it is proposed that the conditions for the warranty
should sometimes be those stated in the marketing of the
good.
The report proposes that the new act shall enter into force on 1
January 2022. It remains to be seen what the next legislative step
will be.
Co Authored by: Richard Fürst
Originally published by GALA, October 2020
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