The Consumer Protection Act one-year on

Under the Act - which took effect on 1 April 2011 - the consumer is entitled to receive goods that are reasonably suitable for the purpose for which they are generally intended, are of good quality, in good working order and free of any defects.

Ros Lake, director at law firm Norton Rose SA, said there was no doubt that the CPA was one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation that South African business has had to deal with in recent years as it has affected all levels of the supply chain, with consequences in all industries.

According to the National Consumer Commission's latest report, the body responsible for enforcing the Act, most complaints were in the telecommunications, health care, motor vehicle and airlines sectors.

According to the same report, the commission handled 15,132 complaints; 4,500 requests for advisory opinions; 2,301 consent agreements were entered into with suppliers; 301 compliance notices were issued and 4,124 complaints were resolved.

Patrick Bracher, who is also a director at Norton Rose SA, said: "The problem to me is the fact that the Act has been too widely applied. It goes to into all sorts of other areas like property, banking and insurance and that has been recognised by the government because they have just put up the new Financial Bill in which those things will be taken back to their particular regulators."

The financial services sector may be exempted from the ambit of the CPA entirely, according to the Financial Services Laws General Amendment Bill, published for public comment on March 9, 2012.

The Bill states that, to the extent that the legislation in the financial sector provides for a stricter standard than non-financial legislation, the CPA does not apply to any person, function, act, transaction, goods or services that are subject to financial sector legislation. This includes the Pension Funds Act, the FAIS Act, Collective Investment Schemes Control Act and the long and short term insurance acts.

The purpose of the Bill is to eliminate overlap caused by the CPA and to make the Financial Services Board the lead regulator where there is concurrent jurisdiction.

Certain financial services were granted a temporary exemption from the CPA by the Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on condition that the financial services industry affords consumers the same or greater protection than that afforded by the CPA.

Bracher believes this is a good move "because what we have seen over the year is the complete inability to make the Act work for the consumer ... they talk about 20,000 calls a month and only resolve 4,000 in many months. The problem is the lack of resources and the way the resources have been applied. Firstly, there should be more provincial consumer bodies who could take the load off the central body. Secondly, they were supposed to publish guidelines or codes of practice by various industries."

The South African Property Owners Association, which represents the commercial property industry, has been vocal about unintended consequences of Section 14 of the CPA on the sector, which included allowing a tenant 20 business days to arbitrarily cancel a lease agreement, and restricting the length of a property lease.