In 2023, Section 12a was added to Act No. 634/1992 Coll., on Consumer Protection, as amended (hereinafter “the Consumer Protection Act”), which regulates traders’ obligations when informing about price reductions on products.

We remind that according to the aforementioned provision, a notice of a price reduction on a product must also contain information about “the lowest price of the product at which the trader offered and sold it during the period of 30 days prior to providing the reduction”. This Section 12a of the Consumer Protection Act is based on Article 6a of Directive 98/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers (hereinafter “the Directive”). Given the number of questions that this legislative text has raised, it could be expected that its provisions would often be the subject of interpretations by the Court of Justice of the EU. The first such case is the judgment in Aldi Süd (C‑330/23). We consider it beneficial to present in this circular the conclusions reached by the Court.

Specifically, the Court addressed in this case the question of whether, in a notice of a reduction, it is possible to indicate the lowest price for the 30 days prior to providing the reduction, but to determine the amount of the reduction on the basis of a different reference price also stated in the notice (for example, the price applied immediately before providing the reduction). Specifically, this concerned the following presentation of a reduction by the German company Aldi Süd Dienstleistungs-SE & Co. OHG, in which the trader informed in white letters about the lowest price within the meaning of Article 6a(2) of the Directive, but in determining the reduction was based on the price preceding the provision of the reduction.

The Court of Justice of the EU reached a fairly expected conclusion that the percentage amount of the reduction must be calculated from the reference price according to Article 6a(2) of the Directive, i.e. the lowest price according to Section 12a(1) of the Consumer Protection Act. This means that “the selling price of goods presented in the notice as reduced cannot in fact be the same as the reference price within the meaning of Article 6a, or even higher”. It may follow from the CJEU judgment that calculating the percentage amount of the reduction from an amount other than the lowest price within the meaning of Section 12a(1) of the Consumer Protection Act is not possible, as it could mislead consumers.

The same conclusions apply to labelling the price after reduction as a “price hit”. The Court stated that this labelling is also not permissible if the price after reduction is only lower than another reference price determined by the trader, but the same as or higher than the lowest price within the meaning of Article 6a(2) of the Directive (and thus Section 12a(1) of the Consumer Protection Act).

Cecílie Sekalová and Josef Aujezdský

This text was originally prepared by the law firm Mašek, Kočí, Aujezdský in cooperation with the Association for Electronic Commerce (APEK) as legal circular No. 11/2024 intended for members of this association.

This text was translated from Czech to English using an AI translator.