Report No. 199
European Council Directive (1993) Applicable to UK and the Regulations of 1994, 1999 and 2001:
However, in 1993 the European Council of Ministers passed the Directive on Unfair Terms on Consumer Contracts which applies (with limited exceptions) to Unfair Terms on any type in consumer contracts. The Directive was implemented in U.K. by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 (herein after called UTCCR) which have now been repealed and replaced by the UTCCR, 1999. This was further amended by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (Amendment) Regulations 2001. The1999 Regulations set out to transcribe the spirit and details of the Directive into the English law. The Regulations did not amend or repeal UCTA; they provided an additional set of controls.
The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (Amendment) Regulations, 2001 amended the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 ("the principal Regulations") by adding the Financial Services Authority to the list of qualifying bodies in Part One of Schedule 1. These Regulations also amend the principal Regulations to reflect changes in the names of certain of the qualifying bodies listed in Part One of Schedule1, and to reflect the fact that the functions of the Director General of Electricity Supply and of the Director General of Gas Supply have been transferred to the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority under Part I of the Utilities Act 2000.
The principal Regulations provide a power for the Director General and the public qualifying bodies to require traders to produce copies of their standard contracts, and give information about their use, in order to facilitate investigation of complaints and ensure compliance with undertakings or court.
Thus, in the field of Contract Law in UK, the Unfair Contract Terms Act, 1977 (UCTA) and the Unfair Terms of Consumer Contracts Regulations, 1999, (UTCCR) are probably the two single most pieces of legislations. What the Law Commissions have now proposed in 2004, to be integrated into a single Act.
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