Consumer Protection Agency reviews 578 complaints, opens 340 cases in 14 months
The Competition and Consumer Protection Agency of Georgia received 578 complaints on violations of consumer rights between November 2022 and January 2024. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge
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The Competition and Consumer Protection Agency of Georgia on Monday said it had received 578 complaints on violations of consumer rights between November 2022 and January 2024 and opened cases on 340 of the submissions.
From the submissions, the body established violations of rights of consumers in 84 cases, with seven complaints dismissed. The inquiries also led to 11 traders being fined ₾21,283 ($7,912) in 22 cases for failures to fulfil obligations imposed by the Agency.
The body also reached 98 agreements in favour of consumers in 161 cases of alleged violations, with ₾500,000 ($185,896) issued in reimbursements.
Agreements were reached with traders to change internal business policies and restore rights of consumers who were allegedly harmed, it noted and added fulfilment of the obligations would be “actively monitored”.
The Agency said 64 percent of applications received from consumers were related to online shopping, with 36 percent related to in-store deals.
A majority of complaints - 85 percent - were received from the capital city of Tbilisi, followed by the Black Sea region of Adjara with six percent and the western region of Imereti with five percent.
Consumers requested the following types of measures in their submissions:
- In 202 cases - repair or replacement of goods not in conformity with the contract
- In 197 cases - return of payment
- In 49 cases - prohibition of misleading activities
- In 32 cases - unconditional return of goods
- In 21 cases - provision of information in the Georgian language
- In 21 cases - on-time delivery
- In 56 cases - other types of requests
In the reporting period, the wholesale and retail sector accounted for 67 percent of the registered complaints, followed by transport and warehousing (16 percent), arts, crafts, entertainment and recreation (five percent), construction (three percent), and other activities (nine percent).
Irakli Lekvinadze, the Chairman of the National Competition Agency of Georgia, on Tuesday said enforcement of competition and consumer rights protection policies in the country was “becoming stronger”.
The Georgian National Competition Agency on Monday said it had launched investigations on 285 issues related to protection of consumer rights out of 509 complaints it had received between November 2022 and March 2023.
On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities marked annually on December 3, the Georgian Government on Sunday announced that work to fulfil the goals and objectives outlined in the second National Strategy for the Protection of Human Rights of Georgia for 2022-2030, adopted in 2023, was underway by developing a 2024-2026 national action plan.
Projects implemented by the Communications Commission of Georgia for protecting rights of consumers and developing media literacy were introduced by the body’s member Vakhtang Abashidze to the audience of the international conference on Competition and Consumer Protection in Tbilisi on Thursday, the state body said.
Georgian Health Minister Zurab Azarashvili on Monday said the Ministry was ensuring “daily” monitoring of oncological and other medical drugs in the domestic pharmaceutical market, following the National Competition Agency’s fining of pharmacy networks last month for price-fixing.
The Competition and Consumer Protection Agency of Georgia on Tuesday announced it had fined three companies ₾1.6 million ($595,954) for an arrangement that granted exclusive rights to selling cinema tickets online in violation of competition law.
The law for regulating the rights and obligations of intermediary service providers in the e-Commerce sector and protecting consumers by making information services more transparent and standardised has fully entered into force in Georgia starting this year.
The Georgian Competition and Consumer Agency on Tuesday said 18,138 concentrations of economic agents had been registered in the country in the fourth quarter of 2023.
The natural and liquid gas markets in Georgia are “compatible” with competitive environment and there are “no risks” of violations of competition legislation by actors in them, the Georgian Competition and Consumer Agency said on Wednesday after publishing the results of its 2019-2022 monitoring of the market.
The State Procurement Agency of Georgia on Wednesday said it had blacklisted 16 companies in the first three weeks of 2024 due to their failure to fulfil obligations under contracts on state procurement.