New directives in the near future: digital content directive & sales of goods directive

2019-02-01T00:00:00
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New directives in the near future: digital content directive & sales of goods directive
New directives in the near future: digital content directive & sales of goods directive
February 1, 2019

By: Claudia Morgado

According to the press release issued by the Council, the EU has taken an important step towards the adoption of a new legal framework for the cross-border sales of goods and digital content. This package will include two new Directives: (i) a directive on contracts for the supply of digital content and services (Digital Content Directive – DCD); and (ii) a directive on contracts the sales of goods (Sales of Goods Directive – SGD). These new directives will lay down common rules and requirements to provide greater legal certainty and protection for consumers and sellers of digital goods and content across borders. They will also facilitate and promote such transactions in the EU, especially by SMEs. In particular, the Digital Content Directive will apply to business-to-consumers (B2C) relations and will cover a wide variety of digital services such as music, multimedia, cloud data hosting, social networks for information sharing, personal data processing, etc. The DCD will provide, among other things, the following: A new regime for non-conformity with or failure to provide digital services, including in the latter case a “second chance” before the contract can be terminated. Minimum time limits for suppliers’ liability in the event of non-conformity, which cannot be less than two years (although it will not establish uniform limitation periods or duration of guarantees in general). The Sales of Goods Directive will apply to in-store and distance sales of goods, including goods with digital elements. The SGD will include, among other things, the following: New obligations for sellers of goods with digital elements (such as Smart TVs and watches). For instance, they must provide updates of such digital elements for certain periods of time. A new guarantee regime (beyond the 2-year legal guarantee) and non-conformity notice periods. We still have to wait before their final adoption, but we are confident that these new directives, together with the recent entry into force of Regulation 2018/302 on addressing unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers’ nationality and Regulation 2017/1128 on cross-border portability of online content services in the internal market, will contribute to a better definition of the legal framework applicable to cross-border sales, which continues to raise many doubts and uncertainties despite the unstoppable progress of existing distance-selling technologies.

February 1, 2019