Poroshenko's deputies are pushing through the Rada a law allowing the closure of online shopping sites
Deputies have registered a bill in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine that will tighten the requirements for identifying online traders and service providers, and will also give the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection (Gosprodpotrebsluzhba) the right to close the websites of online stores that do not comply with its requirements.
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The initiators of bill No. 6754 are deputies of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports with reference to the online publication Capital.
“Over the past five years, the activity of selling goods (work, services) remotely using the Internet and other information and communication systems has become widespread. At the same time, in Ukraine, a significant part of economic activity for the sale of goods (works, services) continues to be carried out in the shadow economy sector,” explain the authors of the initiative.
Thus, the initiators propose to make a number of changes: firstly, to oblige sellers to provide the necessary information about themselves and to increase the amount of the fine for the lack of necessary, accessible, reliable and timely information about the product or the seller; secondly, to grant the State Food and Consumer Service the authority to issue orders to sellers to eliminate violations based on information subject to disclosure; thirdly, to allow the State Food and Consumer Service to make decisions on suspending access to the site in cases where violations are not eliminated.
According to deputies, the need for changes is caused by the fact that the e-commerce industry in Ukraine is still poorly regulated. Thus, in the Law on Electronic Commerce dated September 3, 2015, there are no clearly defined requirements for identifying the seller of goods/services “in order to protect consumer rights and ensure the possibility of checking compliance with tax, currency and other legislation.” It also does not spell out effective mechanisms for responding to violations, nor does it regulate the issue of formalizing settlement transactions, the authors note.
“An online store selling goods at a distance must provide access to information about the organizational and legal form, the full name of the legal entity or the last name, first name, patronymic of an individual entrepreneur; location of a legal entity or place of registration and place of actual residence of an individual entrepreneur; email address and/or online store address, as well as information on the procedure for accepting a claim. Therefore, the absence of such information makes it impossible for the State Food and Consumer Service to carry out a complete and objective review of consumer complaints with unscheduled inspections of such online stores,” notes the explanatory note to the document.
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