• CAA regulating purchases made via websites, social media
• Business to be held accountable for inferior quality products
• Network marketing schemes too to be looked into

The Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) has revealed plans to gazette its newly-prepared regulations to regulate online and social media businesses by next week. 

Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, CAA Chairman Attorney-at-Law Shantha Niriella revealed that the CAA had completed the drafting of the regulations and had forwarded them to the Attorney General’s Department in order to ensure their legality.

He further stated that he had been informed that the Attorney General’s Department would grant approval within the next few days and that thereafter the CAA would gazette the regulations – most likely by next week.

Elaborating further, he stated: “We are attempting to regulate all purchases made online or via social media. In these transactions, after the buyer makes the respective payment for the goods, oftentimes the seller goes missing and the goods never arrive and all attempts to contact them prove futile. Therefore, we will require all online  businesses to register with us and they will be allowed to operate only if they are registered.”

He also stated that in addition to online and social media businesses, they would also attempt to regulate network marketing schemes under these regulations.

Niriella explained that Section 27 of the Consumer Affairs Authority Act No.9 of 2003 imposed a requirement on all traders to register with the CAA and that under the new regulations online and social media businesses would also be interpreted as traders and thereby mandated to register with the CAA.

According to him, one of the major concerns or issues faced by consumers using e-commerce is the difficulty in ensuring accountability on the part of the seller with regard to the quality of the goods sold online. Therefore, following the regulation of the industry under the new regulations, it will be possible to hold online businesses accountable for the quality of goods provided by them.

This new development will likely be well received because consumers had for years called on the CAA to extend its scope to cover e-commerce.