Consumer Rights Act 2022
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Interpretation | ||
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2. (1) In this Act— | ||
“Act of 1995” means the Consumer Credit Act 1995 ; | ||
“Act of 2007” means the Consumer Protection Act 2007 ; | ||
“commercial guarantee”, in relation to a sales contract, means any undertaking by a trader or producer to a consumer (in addition to the trader’s legal obligation to supply goods in conformity with the sales contract) to reimburse the price paid or to repair, replace or service goods in any way if they do not meet the specifications or any other requirements not related to conformity set out in the guarantee statement or in the relevant advertising available at the time of, or before, the conclusion of the sales contract; | ||
“compatibility” means the ability of digital content, digital services or goods to function with hardware or software with which digital content, digital services or goods of the same type is or are normally used without the need to convert the digital content, digital service, goods, hardware or software; | ||
“consumer” means an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession; | ||
“delivery” means voluntary transfer of possession from one person to another; | ||
“digital content” means data which are produced and supplied in digital form, including in particular computer programs, applications, video files, audio files, music files, digital games, e-books and other e-publications; | ||
“digital content contract” means a contract under which— | ||
(a) a trader supplies or undertakes to supply digital content to a consumer, and | ||
(b) the consumer either or both: | ||
(i) pays or undertakes to pay the price of the digital content; | ||
(ii) provides or undertakes to provide personal data to the trader, other than where the personal data are processed by the trader only for the purpose of supplying the digital content in accordance with this Act or complying with any other legal requirement to which the trader is subject; | ||
“digital service” means— | ||
(a) a service that allows a consumer to create, process, store or access data in digital form, or | ||
(b) a service that allows the sharing of or any other interaction with data in digital form uploaded or created by a consumer or other users of that service, | ||
and includes in particular video and audio sharing and other file hosting, social media, and word processing and games offered in the cloud computing environment; | ||
“digital service contract” means a contract under which— | ||
(a) a trader supplies or undertakes to supply a digital service to a consumer, and | ||
(b) the consumer either or both: | ||
(i) pays or undertakes to pay the price of the digital service; | ||
(ii) provides or undertakes to provide personal data to the trader, other than where the personal data are processed by the trader only for the purpose of supplying the digital service in accordance with this Act or complying with any other legal requirement to which the trader is subject; | ||
“distance contract” means a contract concluded between a trader and a consumer under an organised distance sales or service-provision scheme without the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer, and with the exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication up to and including the time at which the contract is concluded; | ||
“district heating” means the supply of heat (in the form of steam, hot water or otherwise) to multiple buildings from a central source of production through a transmission and distribution system for the purpose of heating; | ||
“durable medium” means any instrument which enables a consumer or a trader to store information addressed personally to that person in a way that is accessible for future reference, for a period of time adequate for the purposes of the information, and which allows the unchanged reproduction of the information stored; | ||
“electronic communications service” means a service normally provided for remuneration via electronic communications networks, which encompasses, with the exception of a service providing, or exercising editorial control over, content transmitted using electronic communications networks and services, the following types of service— | ||
(a) a publicly available electronic communications service that provides an internet access service, | ||
(b) an interpersonal communications service, and | ||
(c) a service consisting wholly or mainly in the conveyance of signals such as a transmission service used for the provision of a machine-to-machine service and for broadcasting; | ||
“enactment” has the same meaning as it has in the Interpretation Act 2005 ; | ||
“financial service” means any service of a kind normally provided in the ordinary course of carrying on a banking business, an insurance business or a business of providing credit, personal pensions, an investment service or a payment service; | ||
“functionality” means the ability of goods, digital content or digital services to perform their functions having regard to their purpose; | ||
“goods” means any tangible movable items (other than money and any item sold by way of execution or otherwise by authority of law) and includes— | ||
(a) any tangible movable items that incorporate, or are inter-connected with, digital content or a digital service in such a way that the absence of that digital content or digital service would prevent the goods from performing their functions, and | ||
(b) water, gas and electricity where they are supplied in a limited volume or set quantity; | ||
“goods with digital elements” means any tangible movable items that fall within paragraph (a) of the definition of “goods”; | ||
“internet access service” means a publicly available electronic communications service that provides access to the internet, and thereby connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet, irrespective of the network technology and terminal equipment used; | ||
“interoperability” means the ability of goods, digital content or a digital service to function with hardware or software different from those with which goods, digital content or digital services of the same type are normally used; | ||
“interpersonal communications service” means a service normally provided for remuneration that enables direct interpersonal and interactive exchange of information via electronic communications networks between a finite number of persons, whereby the persons initiating or participating in the communication determine its recipients and does not include services which enable interpersonal and interactive communication merely as a minor ancillary feature that is intrinsically linked to another service; | ||
“Minister” means the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment; | ||
“number-based interpersonal communications service” means an interpersonal communications service which connects with publicly assigned numbering resources, namely, a number or numbers in national or international numbering plans, or which enables communication with a number or numbers in national or international numbering plans; | ||
“off-premises contract” means any of the following contracts between a trader and a consumer: | ||
(a) a contract concluded in the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer in a place which is not the business premises of the trader; | ||
(b) a contract for which an offer was made by the consumer in the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer in a place which is not the business premises of the trader; | ||
(c) a contract concluded on the business premises of the trader or through any means of distance communication immediately after the consumer was personally and individually addressed in a place which is not the business premises of the trader in the simultaneous physical presence of the trader and the consumer; | ||
(d) a contract concluded during an excursion organised by the trader with the aim or effect of promoting and selling goods or services to the consumer; | ||
“ownership” means the general property in goods and not merely a special or limited property; | ||
“personal data” has the same meaning as it has in the Data Protection Act 2018 ; | ||
“prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by the Minister; | ||
“producer” means a manufacturer of goods, an importer of goods into the European Union or any person purporting to be a producer by placing the person’s name, trade mark or other distinctive sign on the goods and includes any person acting in the name, or on behalf, of the producer; | ||
“sales contract” (other than in Part 5 ) has the meaning assigned to it by section 11 (1); | ||
“service” means any service or facility (other than digital content, a digital service and a service provided under a contract of employment or apprenticeship) and includes in particular— | ||
(a) a service or facility for— | ||
(i) financial or other professional services, | ||
(ii) amusement, cultural activities, entertainment, instruction, recreation or refreshment, | ||
(iii) accommodation, | ||
(iv) communication, including electronic communication, | ||
(v) transport, travel, parking or storage, | ||
(vi) the care and maintenance of persons, animals or things, or | ||
(vii) the construction, maintenance or repair of buildings, | ||
(b) the supply of— | ||
(i) water, gas or electricity where it is not supplied in a limited volume or set quantity, or | ||
(ii) district heating, | ||
and | ||
(c) any rights, benefits, privileges, obligations or facilities that are, or are to be, provided, granted or conferred in the course of a service; | ||
“service contract” (other than in Part 5 ) means a contract (other than a sales contract and a contract for the sale of land (within the meaning of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 )) under which— | ||
(a) a trader supplies or undertakes to supply a service to a consumer, and | ||
(b) the consumer pays or undertakes to pay the price of the service; | ||
“trader” means— | ||
(a) a natural person, or | ||
(b) a legal person, whether— | ||
(i) privately owned, | ||
(ii) publicly owned, or | ||
(iii) partly privately owned and partly publicly owned, | ||
who is acting for purposes relating to the person’s trade, business, craft or profession, and includes any person acting in the name, or on behalf, of the trader. | ||
(2) In subsection (1), in the definitions of “digital content contract”, “digital service contract” and “service contract”, any reference to the consumer paying a price includes a reference to the consumer using by way of payment any facility by which payment is made. | ||
(3) It is for a trader claiming that an individual was not acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession to show that the individual was not so acting. | ||
(4) A reference in this Act to the sale of goods includes a reference to the transfer of, or an undertaking to transfer, the ownership of those goods. | ||
(5) A reference in this Act to the supply of a service or a digital service includes a reference to the performance, rendering or provision of the service or of the digital service, as the case may be. | ||
(6) In Parts 2 to 4 , a reference to a reasonable expectation shall be interpreted having regard objectively to the nature and purpose of the contract concerned, the circumstances of the case and the usages and practices of the parties to the contract. |