The Consumer Protection Act (CPA) has been signed into law and will become operative on 24 October 2010. The CPA will have huge implications for your standard business terms and conditions, policies and other documents. The CPA introduces many obligations on vendors which vendors may probably not even be aware of because it was never before required by law. These include for example:

  • A vendor must bring certain clauses to a customer’s attention;
  • Very specific requirements when selling goods voetstoots;
  • Warranty against defective goods for 6 months;
  • Liability for gross negligence.

It is imperative that you as Vendor understand what you may and may not include in your terms and other documents. To accomplish this, we can perform a two leg exercise to your existing documents. We

  1. Audit your existing documents to determine whether they comply with the provisions of the CPA; and
  2. Draft or redraft appropriate clauses where your existing documents do not comply.

We can also provide advice or an opinion on various clauses independently like warranty, indemnity, liability, delivery and any others.

We will help you to:

  1. Assess where you are;
  2. Determine the gap between your actual position and compliance;
  3. Fill the gap to ensure that your documents comply.

Through the audit you either get assurance that you comply or we help you to comply.

The deliverables are:

  1. a written report on the audit including a report on all aspects where your existing documents do not comply and the implications of non – compliance. It entails a clause by clause examination and references to the applicable section in the CPA;
  2. redrafted or new clauses to ensure compliance.