Commercial record in Romania: The contraventional history of traders in the field of consumer protection | News Flash

On 13.09.2022 was published Order no. 584/2022 on the establishment of the data contained in the commercial record in Romania, the procedure and the instructions for filling in the records held by the National Authority for Consumer Protection.

The commercial record was introduced by art. V of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 58/2022 for the amendment and completion of some normative acts in the field of consumers, its purpose being to record the contraventional history of the sanctioned economic operators for the non-observance in the field of consumers, and depending on this, the sanctions applied to be much more severe.The commercial record is the record sheet in which the Authority records the facts and sanctions applied to traders, and it issues commercial record extracts that have a validity of 6 months from the issuance.

The content of the commercial record includes mainly:

• the identification data of the commissioner who enters the data: name and surname, as well as the number of the credential;
• the name of the trader, indicating all the identification data, the headquarters address, the address of the working point;
• the series/ number and the date of conclusion of the contravention minutes;
• the number and date of the order or decision issued on the basis of the minutes establishing the contravention;
• description of the non observance;
• indication of the breached normative act / article;
• the applied sanction, indicating the normative act / article, the amount and, if applicable, specifying the minimum applied, as the case may be;
• indication of the ordered measures;
• indication of the complementary sanctions;
• the court and the file number, if the contravention minutes, the order or the decision was challenged;
• the date of deregistration;
• other mentions.

Procedure of recording, rectification or deregistration from the commercial record

The registration in the commercial record is made by the titular commissioner of the report of finding the contravention within 2 (two) days from the communication of the minutes.

If the data recorded in the commercial record do not correspond to the real situation or the registration was not made according to the legal provisions, the trader may request the rectification by request addressed to the structure that issued the minutes.

The deregistration of the sanction from the commercial record can be made after the expiry of the 3-year term from the date of registration or by cancelling the minutes that was the basis of the registration.

Access to the commercial record

Access to the information in the commercial record is allowed to the criminal investigation bodies, courts of law or trader, but only with regard to him directly, based on the request.

Publicity of data from the commercial record

The Authority will be able to make public the data from the commercial record only after the expiry of the challenge term of the contravention minutes or after the rejection of the trader’s complaint by a final court decision.

We consider that a centralized record of the contraventional history of the sanctioned economic operators could have a positive impact on the trader’s compliance area, because in the case of multiple contraventions of the same economic operator, the measures taken by the authority will be much more severe. This aspect could lead to a balance in the relationship between operators and consumers or at least discourage certain undesirable commercial practices.