The Importance of Consumer Protection - Coursework Example

Consumer Protection Consumer protection is actually meant to be the safety of the consumers from different inequitable trade practices. For this objective to be fulfilled, various consumer protection laws have been enacted in various countries, where the main purpose is to avoid the exploitation of the customers throughout the world, as well as the establishment of the checks upon the performance of the businesses and ensuring that there is not any business malfunctioning involved in that. In considering the importance of this protection of the consumers, the organization of the consumers, providing market information to them, ensuring physical safety, and avoiding the monopoly of the businesses are the main considerations that have to be taken care of when the consumer protection is under consideration. The purpose of this report is to highlight various malpractices of the business companies, due to which a large number consumers is not feeling safe from the monopolizing markets and fair market principles are becoming vague day by day. The case studies taken in this report, based upon which the recommendations and conclusions will be made, are about a book and a film. The concerned film is about the same consumer protection laws which are being violated in the modern day. ‘Class Action’ is the name of the movie that was first released in 1991 in United States of America. The referred book in this report is Brian L. Nelson’s ‘Law and Ethics in Global Business Environment’. The analysis will be established based on the combine study of both the film and the book. The main focus would be to discuss the events happened in the film related to the consumer protection that has been raised in the Nelson’s book. The chapter on the consumer protection discussed in Nelson’s book finds it practical implication in the movie mentioned above. The foremost concern that the chapter highlights in favor of the customers is their ‘right to know’ which has been very beautifully shown in the movie. In terms of the corporate decision making, the right to know principle is actually ignored as the participants in the decision making process are not all those personnel or representatives who are going to be directly affected by the practice of those decisions, and this has been shown in the movie quite clearly in the beginning when there is a meeting held in the automobile company in which only the manufacturers, market vendors, or finance managers are shown to be participating in the meeting in which important decisions concerning product sales are going to be made. In terms of the moral context of the same principle, the right to know is actually implicit and it has been made for the individuals in terms of their own rational decision making. The freedom of contract is the basic necessity that this principle is going to meet if the ‘right to know’ is properly executed. This moral context has also been featured in the movie where the customers are not bound to be told about the ‘inside’ information and they are not aware about certain information when they are going to purchase a product, in the context of movie, the car. In contractual and commercial context, the manufacturing or selling companies are normally liable for the misrepresentations they have made to the buyers who have purchased goods and services from them. In this case, the consumers according to said laws must be protected directly by the company which sold that good, which is ensured through a contract. In context of the movie, the violation of the said principle is shown when the buyer of a car is not satisfied with the company’s product after he has inflicted himself an accident. The script of the movie shows that he goes to the company officials for meeting the contract terms they provided to him in terms of paying for the cost incurred in getting that car fixed, which the officials do not agree with and due to the violation of the contract, the consumer is forced to go to the court via suing the automobile company. In the context of the consumer, the ‘right to know’ principle is clearly depicted in the movie when the affected consumer visits the company. The company officials are not seen informing the complete description of the product to the consumer. On the other hand, the government’s role in terms of the promotion of the consumer protection is not shown as that part has been left aside for others to think about. The concept of the fair dealing is another feature that has been shown in the movie. This concept has been incorporated into the movie in a very sarcastic tone. Fair dealing is actually the central concept in terms of the consumer relationships. It is also expected to add both the competition law, as well as the disclosure obligations that are pursuant to the right to know. These features have not been included in the film in the direct sense and only an indication of this concept has been provided where the main idea behind was the execution of the ‘fair dealing’ in practical relationship between vendors and buyers. In a scenario, where the car is sold to a consumer living across the border, the OECD has implemented certain laws and regulations which will protect the consumers from malfunctioning and fraudulent activities undertaken by the companies. In context of the movie, if the car was bought by the consumer living in another country, and if the same situation had happened, then he might have contacted the OECD authorities operating in his country and then the authorities might have reported directly to the company operating in another country. On the other hand, certain policies might have also been executed by OECD and also the authorities might also have warned the consumers about the products they are going to purchase that there might be malfunctioning involved in a certain product. And in that context, the OECD personnel might have helped the consumers in terms of their decision making about different competitors when they are going to purchase a product. This way, the OECD can be considered to be working as a mediator between the international parties, i.e. sellers and buyers. The potential impact that the OECD’s inclusion in the movie might have made on the viewers might be the publicity of the operations of the organization that it is performing, which means people might have come to know about what OECD does and how it can help the general consumers when they are going to purchase a good or service from the company based in another country. The OECD authorities have also developed a framework according to which certain objectives are created in order to make the personalized trade more transparent and free of frauds. Some of the objectives are as follows: Establishment of the domestic system for fighting against the cross-border fraudulent commercial activities and practices undertaken against the consumers. Enhancement of the system concerning information sharing as well as the assistance provided to the investigations. Improvement in the ability to protect the consumers from the domestic businesses that are engaged in the fraudulent and deceptive commercial practices. Improvements in the ability of protecting the consumers form the foreign businesses which are engaged in the fraudulent commercial practices. Consideration of ensuring the effective redressing of the consumers who have been victimized. Cooperation among the relevant entities belonging to the private sector. There have been several ethical theories that can be considered relevant to the script of the film. Firstly, the foremost ethical principle concerning the consumers’ right to know has been addressed in the movie in which several flaws have been shown in the domestic trading system due to the absence of this principle from the commercial markets and businesses. Also, the fair dealing is another principle used in the movie the absence of which has shown many loopholes in the trading relationships between the consumers and sellers. The theory of deontology is the one ethical principle that can be considered to be included in to the idea of the film. The theory basically says that an action is right if it is in accordance to a moral rule or a principle, and in the context of the movie, if the moral values of the consumers as well as their principles are respected, then they must also be respected in the grounds of the trade. This can be exemplified through one example that the companies do claim to respect their clients via the advertising, which are seriously considered by the consumers, but they sometimes get caught of the fraudulent operations of these companies, where the moral values and respect of the consumers is at stake. Work Cited: Nelson, Brian L. . Law and Ethics in Global Business. London: Routledge, 2006. Print. Jennings, Marianne. Business: Its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Kline, John M. Ethics for International Business: Decision Making in a Global Political Economy. London: Routledge, 2005. Print. Hackney, Blackwell Amy. Law. New York: Ferguson, 2010. Print. Howells, Geraint G., and Stephen Weatherill. Consumer Protection Law. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2005. Print. Consumer Protection Laws. Olympia, WA: Office of the Attorney General, 1988. Print Horvath, August, John Villafranco, and Stephen Calkins. Consumer Protection Law Developments. Chicago, IL: ABA Section of Antitrust Law, 2009. Print. Feldman, Laurence P. Consumer Protection: Problems and Prospects. St. Paul: West Pub., 1976. Print. Cseres, Katalin J. Competition Law and Consumer Protection. The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2005. Print. Shafer-Landau, Russ. Ethical Theory: an Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2007. Print. Beauchamp, Tom L., and Norman E. Bowie. Ethical Theory and Business. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979. Print. Solovay, Norman, and Cynthia K. Reed. The Internet and Dispute Resolution: Untangling the Web. New York: Law Journal, 2003. Print. OECD Factbook 2010: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics. [Paris]: OECD, 2010. Print. Read More