The EU's Consumer Rights Directive (Directive), which the EU Council voted to adopt on 10 October, could have an interesting impact on liability in all consumer to consumer contracts for the supply of goods and services.
In preparation for the Directive, plans were announced recently to put in place a single UK Consumer Bill of Rights (Bill) which involves a radical shake up of the current legislation.
It will be interesting to see how well the Bill will apply to software given the uncertainty of whether software is a good or service! Also, depending on how far the Bill goes, the impact on business’ ability to restrict liability could be significant.
The Directive doesn't need to be implemented by UK law until the end of 2013, although given the progress that has already been made, the Bill may well be in force sooner. Either way, it will be sometime before we know the full extent of the changes that will be made to the current legislation; however it is one to be aware of when putting consumer contracts together.
A nice summary of the proposed legislation can be found here.
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