348		Policy on unfair commercial practices
		and publishÂ	a corrective statement if necessary.61 A breach of an injunction is, of
	course, a contempt of court and can be punished as such.
		(ii)â Undertakings
		A less dramatic step, when an enforcement authority considers that there has
		been or is likely to be a breach of regulations 3, 4 or 5, is to accept an undertak-
		ing under regulation 16 from the person concerned or likely to be concerned.
		Such an undertaking would state that the person concerned will comply with
		the Regulations in the future. If the trader subsequently breaches the undertak-
		ing, the enforcement authority can seek an injunction instead, and if the trader
		fails to comply with the injunction, he could be prosecuted for contempt of
		court, which could result in imprisonment.
		Q7 Consider the use of injunctions and undertakings as a means of enforcing
		the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.

6â Recommended reading

De Groote, B. and De Vulder, K. ‘European framework for unfair commercial practices:

	analysis of Directive 2005/29’ (2007) Journal of Business Law 16
Department of Trade and Industry The Unfair Commercial Practices		Directive,
	Consultation on a Draft EU Directive, COM(2003)356 (London, 2002)
â	The Unfair Commercial Practices (UCP) Directive, Consultation on	Framing
	and Enforcing Criminal Sanctions in the Regulations implementing the Unfair
	Commercial Practices Directive (London, 2006)
â	Implementation of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Consultation on the
	Draft Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2007 (London, 2007)

Dobson, P. and Stokes, R. Commercial Law (7th edn, Sweet & Maxwell Ltd, London, 2008)

Griffiths, M. ‘Unfair commercial practices: a new regime’ (2007) 12 Communications Law 194

Griffiths, M. and Griffiths, I. Law for Purchasing and Supply (3rd edn, Pearson Education Ltd, Harlow, 2002)

Johnson, H. ‘Advertisers beware! The impact of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’ (2005) 10 Communications Law 164

Ramsay, I. Consumer Law and Policy: Text and Materials on Regulating Consumer Markets (2nd edn, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2007)

Shears, P. ‘Overviewing the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive: Concentric circles’ (2007) 18 European Business Law Review 781

Stuyck, J., Terryn, E., and Van Dyck, T. ‘Confidence through fairness? The new Directive on Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices in the internal market’ (2007) 43 Common Market Law Review 107

Twigg-Flesner, C. ‘Deep impact? The EC Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices and Domestic Consumer Law’ (2005) 121 Law Quarterly Review 386

61 BPMM Regulations 2008, reg. 18.

349	6â Recommended reading

The passage of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive was one of the major current developments in commercial law and, as such, has attracted a lot of academic comment. Given that the Directive has been adopted almost verbatim into the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, readers may benefit from reading articles about the Directive and the Regulations drawn from the list above.

Part 5 Chapter 2

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

Contents
1â	Introduction	350
2â Scope of the 2008 Regulations		351
3â Prohibition against unfair commercial practices		357
4â	Codes of practice	360
5â	Misleading actions	362
6â	Misleading omissions	372
7â	Aggressive commercial practices	375
8â Commercial practices which are automatically unfair		379
9â	Offences	391
10â	Recommended reading	392

1â Introduction

This chapter analyses the provisions of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the new, comprehensive regime of controls that have been put in place to protect consumers from unfair and unscrupulous activities by traders. The Regulations replace many of the pre-existing provisions while also extending protection in other areas

Section 2 considers the scope of the Regulations, including what constitutes a commercial practice, the meaning of consumers and which transactions are covered by the Regulations.

Section 3 analyses the prohibition against unfair commercial practices and the criminal offence created for breaches of that regulation, and section 4 deals with the prohibition against code owners using codes of conduct to promote unfair commercial activities.

Section 5 examines the controls over misleading actions that have replaced and extended the law in this area, including the definition of a misleading action, and the regulation 5(4) factors.

Section 6 deals with the issue of misleading omissions to prevent traders from misleading consumers by omitting or hiding material information. Section 7