Know Your Rights as a Consumer

Know Your Rights as a Consumer and How to Protect Yourself as a Business Under the New Consumer Protection Law in UAE

Mostly, however, businesses and their employees miss out on consumers’ rights and subject them to unfair treatment. On November 10, 2020 Federal Law No. 15 of 2020 on Consumer Protection was issued with an objective to protect consumers’ rights and penalize businesses for not abiding by this law. According to the law the scope are as follows:

• The law applies to all goods and services sold or provided by suppliers, advertisers and commercial agents across the UAE’s mainland and free zones.
• It also covers goods sold through eCommerce platforms registered in the UAE.
• Meanwhile, the law does not apply to eCommerce activities that are carried out between customers in the UAE and eCommerce businesses registered outside the UAE.

Consumer Rights

According to the law, the UAE’s consumers are granted the following rights:

• to be provided an appropriate and safe environment when purchasing a good or receiving a service
• to obtain correct information about the goods they purchase, use or consume or the service they receive
• to be informed about their rights and obligations of the goods or services purchased
• to have the right to choose the most appropriate product and service available in the market according to their wishes
• to obtain fair compensation for damages they suffer as a result of purchasing or using defective goods or receiving inadequate or unprofessional services.

The Supplier must:

• protect consumers’ privacy and data security, and refrain from using them for promotional and marketing purposes
• respect consumers’ religious values, customs and traditions when providing them with goods or services
• settle consumers’ disputes promptly
• provide the consumer with a dated invoice that includes their trade name, address, type of goods or service sold or provided, its price and quantity and any other data specified by the Executive Regulation of this law. The invoice must be in Arabic and the provider may add any other language, as he deems fit.

The law introduced penalty of imprisonment upto 2 years and a fine of upto AED2,000,000.

For more details please reach out to our cross-border business lawyers at Cygal Attorneys who are experienced in handling any type of consumer complaints. We ensure complete readiness of businesses (including Gap Analysis) to be in compliance with the requirements of the new consumer protection law thereby reducing chances of consumer complaints and/or penalty.