On May 28, 2022, the European directive “Omnibus” entered into force in France. This aims to better protect consumers against deceptive commercial practices such as “price gouging, fake user reviews and misleading presentations”.
Omnibus should make it possible to fight against the inflation of prices
This order was accepted in December 2021 by European lawmakers. Its objective is clear: to reform online sales with the aim of better informing and protecting the consumer. It is one of the spearheads of the European Commission. This regulation makes it possible, in particular, to better regulate marketplaces, such as Amazon. The ordinance obliges, for example, online sales professionals to provide “essential information” to internet users.
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With this new law, the legislators hope in particular to fight against the phenomenon of “inflated prices”. You have certainly already seen such a situation. During promotions, the seller artificially increases the price upstream, then lowers it to make it look like a good deal. To comply with the new law, merchants will have to display the reference price from which the reduction is calculated. With this rule, France hopes to minimize this practice.
New categories for deceptive marketing practices
These constraints do not apply to perishable foodstuffs. The regulations also require websites that sell products or services to be particularly vigilant about false opinions or false recommendations. Many merchants use this practice. In 2020, a study showed that fake reviews were proliferating on Amazon. However, today opinions are decisive for consumers. They are an excellent indicator to know if a product meets your expectations. At least that is the case when they are genuine.
The text also defines new categories of misleading commercial practices. Among these are “the presentation of a good as being identical to a marketed good when it has a different composition or characteristics”. Finally, the law also prohibits the presentation of a ranking of results without warning the consumer that a third party paid for their product to get a better place. Now, if a market place commits an infringement, the ordinance provides for fines of up to 300,000 euros or 4% of the turnover of the company concerned.