Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010

Consumers enter into various types of contracts for the supply of goods or services in their everyday lives. In most cases these contracts contain terms which are more favourable to traders but are unfair to the consumers. A standard form contract designed by the traders is the common contract whe...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Amin, Naemah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: LexisNexis 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://irep.iium.edu.my/30573/1/Unfair_contract_terms.pdf
_version_ 1825647343244935168
author Amin, Naemah
author_facet Amin, Naemah
author_sort Amin, Naemah
collection IIUM
description Consumers enter into various types of contracts for the supply of goods or services in their everyday lives. In most cases these contracts contain terms which are more favourable to traders but are unfair to the consumers. A standard form contract designed by the traders is the common contract where unfair terms can be expected to be found. Unfair terms particularly in the form of exemption clauses can also be found or printed in the receipts, invoices and other sale documents. These terms may operate extremely harshly against consumers because their rights may be limited or restricted or denied all together. Malaysian consumers have been haunted with this issue for a long time even after the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act ('CPA') in 1999 since the issue has not been properly tackled by the Act. Nonetheless this major loophole in the Malaysian consumer protection law has recently been rectified by the CPA (Amendment) Act 2010. It is interesting to note that the Amendment has adopted the Indian Law Commission Report on Unfair (Procedural & Substantive) Terms in Contract (2006), which divides unfairness into 'procedural' and 'substantive' unfairness. Such a division has not been done in any country so far. This article evaluates the extent to which provisions on procedural unfairness and substantive unfairness under a new Part IIIA of the CPA provide better protection to consumers in terms of getting a fair bargain.
first_indexed 2024-03-05T23:16:13Z
format Article
id oai:generic.eprints.org:30573
institution International Islamic University Malaysia
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-05T23:16:13Z
publishDate 2013
publisher LexisNexis
record_format dspace
spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:305732014-10-23T08:29:10Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/30573/ Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010 Amin, Naemah K Law (General) Consumers enter into various types of contracts for the supply of goods or services in their everyday lives. In most cases these contracts contain terms which are more favourable to traders but are unfair to the consumers. A standard form contract designed by the traders is the common contract where unfair terms can be expected to be found. Unfair terms particularly in the form of exemption clauses can also be found or printed in the receipts, invoices and other sale documents. These terms may operate extremely harshly against consumers because their rights may be limited or restricted or denied all together. Malaysian consumers have been haunted with this issue for a long time even after the introduction of the Consumer Protection Act ('CPA') in 1999 since the issue has not been properly tackled by the Act. Nonetheless this major loophole in the Malaysian consumer protection law has recently been rectified by the CPA (Amendment) Act 2010. It is interesting to note that the Amendment has adopted the Indian Law Commission Report on Unfair (Procedural & Substantive) Terms in Contract (2006), which divides unfairness into 'procedural' and 'substantive' unfairness. Such a division has not been done in any country so far. This article evaluates the extent to which provisions on procedural unfairness and substantive unfairness under a new Part IIIA of the CPA provide better protection to consumers in terms of getting a fair bargain. LexisNexis 2013-07 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/30573/1/Unfair_contract_terms.pdf Amin, Naemah (2013) Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010. Malayan Law Journal, 1. pp. 1-11. ISSN 0025-1283 http://www.lexisnexis.com/my/academic/
spellingShingle K Law (General)
Amin, Naemah
Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title_full Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title_fullStr Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title_full_unstemmed Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title_short Protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in Malaysia: the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Act 2010
title_sort protecting consumers against unfair contract terms in malaysia the consumer protection amendment act 2010
topic K Law (General)
url http://irep.iium.edu.my/30573/1/Unfair_contract_terms.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT aminnaemah protectingconsumersagainstunfaircontracttermsinmalaysiatheconsumerprotectionamendmentact2010