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Rättigheter och skyldigheter för dig som företagare - Engelska
Consumer rights legislation regulates the rights and obligations of both companies and consumers. As a company, you must comply with consumer rights legislation, including the Consumer Sales Act, Consumer Services Act, Consumer Contracts Act, Act on Distance Contracts and Off-Premises Contracts and Act on Limitation.
Translated page: This text has been translated from Swedish. The text and appearance of the page may look different from the original page.
Keep in mind
There are a number of acts that regulate the relationship between companies and consumers, including the Consumer Sales Act and Consumer Services Act.
These acts are binding concerning consumer rights. Your company cannot reach an agreement with a consumer that takes away their statutory rights.
Your company must ensure that your contractual terms and conditions and the information you give to consumers comply with statutory requirements.
Consumer rights legislation regulates the rights and obligations of both companies and consumers. As a business, you must comply with consumer rights legislation, including the Consumer Sales Act, Consumer Services Act, Consumer Contracts Act, Act on Distance Contracts and Off-Premises Contracts and Act on Limitation.
The fact that this legislation is binding means that your company cannot reach an agreement with a consumer that takes away their statutory rights. For example, pursuant to the Consumer Sales Act, the consumer has the right to complain about an original defect within three years. Contractual terms and conditions that give the consumer less time to submit a complaint are invalid.
If the consumer lodges a complaint, disputes between companies and consumers may be tried by the National Board for Consumer Disputes (ARN). Disputes may also be tried in general court.
The Swedish Consumer Agency is the supervisory authority tasked with safeguarding consumer rights. Consumers can lodge a complaint with the agency if they experience problems with a company. While the Swedish Consumer Agency does not adjudicate individual disputes between consumers and companies, complaints describing a dispute may be used within the framework of supervision as an indication of the types of problems consumers encounter and which companies and products the agency should investigate. For example, a company may have failed to address a consumer’s complaint about a defect in contravention of the Consumer Sales Act, or engaged in misleading marketing in contravention of the Marketing Act (SFS 2008:486).
The Swedish Consumer Agency supervises compliance with the provisions of the Marketing Act and Consumer Contracts Act. If your company breaks the law, it may be ordered to pay a sanction fee.
It is not permitted to:
engage in misleading marketing concerning consumers’ statutory rights (10 § of the Marketing Act, 10 p. on the blacklist of misleading commercial practices)
employ contractual terms and conditions that breach consumers’ statutory rights pursuant to, for example, the Consumer Sales Act or Consumer Services Act (3 § of the Consumer Contracts Act).
It is important that companies supply the consumer with clear contact information so that they can exercise their statutory rights, which may contravene 10 § of the Marketing Act.
In addition to these acts, there are also other regulations that provide a framework when disputes arise concerning the purchase of goods or services. Your company must ensure that your contractual terms and conditions and the information you give to consumers comply with statutory requirements.
It is important that your company is aware of the following:
Children are not permitted to make purchases on credit, including subscriptions, even with the permission of their parents/guardians, unless permission is granted by the municipality’s chief guardian (Chapter 13 - 12 § of the Parental Code (SFS 1949:381).
As a general rule, a claim by a business against a consumer must by invoked within three years (2 § of the Act on Limitation).
While many services are not covered by the Consumer Services Act, as a general rule a claim submitted within two months of the consumer becoming aware of a defect is considered to have been submitted in a timely manner. There may be separate provisions in special legislation concerning deadlines for making claims.
Even if the Consumer Services Act does not cover all services, the right to cancel may still be invoked in many cases, such as booking a course that the consumer later wishes to cancel (NJA 2002 p. 644). There is separate legislation regulating the cancellation of certain services, such as travel.
As a general rule, the consumer has a 14-day right of withdrawal from contracts entered into remotely via an organised system, and contracts entered into outside business premises.
Learn more about rules on distance contracts here on the website (länk till engelsk sida)
As a general rule, sending messages is done at the sender's risk, meaning that the person sending the message bears the risk that the message will not arrive on time. However, this does not apply to complaints and other notifications concerning penalties for breach of contract and the right of withdrawal. The risk then rests with the recipient, as long as the message was sent in an appropriate manner (cf. Section 40 of the Consumer Contracts Act, Svea Court Of Appeal Case No. FT 12890-21, Chapter 8 Section 6 of the Consumer Sales Act, Sections 17 and 26 of the Consumer Services Act and Chapter 2 Section 10 of the Act on Distance Contracts and Off-Premises Contracts).
A consumer retains the right to withhold payment for goods or services they have purchased if it is likely that the goods or service will not be delivered. This applies even if the provisions of the Consumer Sales Act or Consumer Services Act are not applicable. That this right applies to contracts between consumers and businesses has been established by the Supreme Court (NJA 2014 p. 978).
It is prohibited to discriminate against a consumer based on their nationality or place of residence when selling goods and services. This means, for example, that a company may not block access nor redirect consumers to another website without their explicit consent. Consumers from other EU Member States must be permitted to shop on the same terms as local consumers, as long as they collect or arrange delivery themselves. Nor may payment terms be discriminatory (Articles 3–5 of Regulation (EU) 2018/302 addressing unjustified geo-blocking).
As a general rule, the consumer has the right to demand to purchase the product at the agreed price. If your company has unintentionally quoted an obviously unreasonable price that the consumer should reasonably be expected to realise is incorrect, you are not bound by the price information (32 § Consumer Contracts Act).
There is a general obligation to limit one’s own damage due to breach of contract. This implies that damages for a cover purchase that a consumer has made may be reduced if the consumer purchases an unnecessarily expensive replacement product (50 a § Consumer Services Act, Chapter 8 - 1 § of the Consumer Sales Act, 70 § of the Sale of Goods Act (SFS 1990:931).
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