Standard Contract: Advance announcement on the draft amendments to “Mandatory and Prohibitory Provisions of Standard Contract for Gift Voucher for Goods (Services) Applicable to Retailer, etc.” made by Ministry of Economic Affairs on August 1st, 2014.

[2014/08/01]

Given that the customers may undertake the risk of uncertainty arising from lack of information regarding the relationship between the voucher issuers and goods/services providers and the accountability among them, the gift voucher having a third party providing the goods or services is prohibited under current law. However, with the evolvement of business models, there is the need in the market to issue the gift voucher by the issuer who does not actually provide the subject goods/services. Therefore, Ministry of Economic Affairs made the advance announcement on the draft amendments to “Mandatory and Prohibitory Provisions of Standard Contract for Gift Voucher for Goods (Services) Applicable to Retailer, etc.” (“Amendments”) on August 1st, 2014, on the one hand allowing the issuance of gift voucher under which the goods/services are provided by a third party, and, on the other hand, strengthening the consumer protection. The brief of the Amendments are as below:

1. Mandatory Provisions:
(1) As to the gift voucher with the goods/services actually provided by a third party, the Amendments require that the issuers of such voucher shall have a paid-in capital of NTD30 million or more and shall provide the name, address and telephone number of the actual goods/services providers. Besides, the ways of performance guaranty for such voucher are limited to (a) the guaranty with full reimbursement provided by financial institutions and (b) opening the trust account for exclusive use.
(2) In the case that the gift voucher may not be able to prescribe the mandatory provisions completely as a result of the issuance is made in the form of magnetic stripe, chip card or digital way, the issuers shall, in writing or via other reasonable methods, such as text message or 2D barcode, notify the consumers the content of the same and provide them the method that enables the consumers to view the transaction details.

2. Prohibitory Provisions: (1) The Amendments prohibit any provisions stating any terms and conditions that the consumption with the gift voucher with the goods/services actually provided by a third party is less favorable than the consumption by cash, so as to protect the consumer’s rights when using such voucher.
(2) The gift voucher with goods/services actually provided by a third party shall not have any provisions charging the consumers for any extra fees when they require gift voucher refund.
(3) The gift voucher with the goods/services actually provided by a third party shall not have any provisions or similar description to release the liability of the issuers in the event of consumer disputes between the consumers and the actual providers of goods/services. In other words, the voucher issuers may still have to take the responsibility for such consumer disputes.