Sustainable Living Hong Kong

The Commerce and Economic Development Bureau (CEDB) has just started a public consultation on potential legislation to enhance consumer protection.  To enhance consumer protections, the Department proposes that under new legislation (for consideration in 2010-2011), unfair trade practices such as “bait and switch”, misleading omissions, aggressive sales tactics, and phishing (collecting money with no intention to deliver service) be prohibited and punishable by law.

Great ! you say.  With so much supposed pressure on property developers to be honest, one might be forgiven for thinking that the government is finally backing its rhetoric with the force of regulation.

Wrong again. The mooted legislation has already excluded finance, property development, and professional services – three of the most egregious offenders of the above tactics—from consideration, with the supposed excuse that these sectors are otherwise regulated by statutory bodies.

What justifies an exlusion a priori?   If the above tactics are so bad, shouldn’t they be punishable and forbidden across the board regardless of which department is responsible for enforcement?   And if those statutory bodies are doing their jobs, these unfair practices shouldn’t be allowed at all, and so forbidding them in another legislation would not really make a difference or add to anyone’s workload.

Or is this simply another vehicle that can be used to fry the small trader, while much greater offenses are quietly settled and suppressed after months of “investigation”?

Submit your views to the CEDB by October 31 by post (to Level 29, One Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong), fax (2869 4420), or e-mail (cpr@cedb.gov.hk).