The Government is expected to sign off on the new Consumer and Competition Bill today, which paves the way for the creation of a code of practice for the grocery industry.
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton will today bring legislation to a Cabinet meeting to establish the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, which involves merging the Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority.
The new system aims to be stricter on abuses of the system, including any agreements between competitors to fix prices, limit production or sales, or share markets. It will give new criminal investigation powers to the Commission to enable it to push prosecution on serious offenders.
The new Competition and Consumer Protection Commission will also clamp down on misleading commercial practices including false, misleading or deceptive information, competitor or product confusion in marketing or advertising, and withholding, omitting or concealing material information.
The Commission will also gain the authority to use detention periods more effectively when a person is being questioned about a possible offence, as well as protecting whistleblowing employees who provide information to investigators. The legislation will also allow evidence of taped witness interviews to be used in court in certain circumstances.
More staff will be employed in order to get the Commission working with the new changes in legislation.
© 2014 - Checkout Magazine by Genna Patterson
