The Ombud Strikes Back – A Victory For Consumers Too

The Consumer Protection Act ("the CPA") contains several mechanisms that consumers can use to enforce their rights against suppliers in relation to defective products or substandard services. Amongst these, section 82 of the CPA empowers the Minister of Trade and Industry to prescribe an industry code:

• regulating the interaction between or among persons conducting business within an industry; or
• regulating the interaction, or providing for alternative dispute resolution, between a person conducting business within an industry and consumers.

The section seeks to address a longstanding need in the machinery available for enforcing the rights of consumers in particular industries and resolving disputes between industry participants. While there have been industry bodies in some industries for many years (the Consumer Goods Council and the Franchise Association of South Africa just being two examples), they have always suffered from the fact that they did not