News

The e-commerce in El Salvador is a rubric full of opportunities, for both the consumers and providers, where achieving new markets is just a click away. The need to legislate the e-commerce became a society necessity by making legal acts such as concluding contracts, transactions of goods and services, despite of lower cost and time, but it wasn’t protected in totality the merchants and consumers’ rights. For this reason the Legislative Assembly in its Decree No. 51, pronounced in July 30^th, of the present year, submits the e-commerce to the regulation established in the Consumer Protection Law, from now on CPL, where it has reformed its dispositions in favor of this rubric.

The reforms established in the CPL comes to grant guarantees to the parties that celebrate commercial acts electronically, and one of these is the right of withdrawal, defined as the authority of the consumer of overrule the contract unilaterally, that if it was certainly regulated, it didn’t cover all those purchases made online. In these reforms, the law grants the consumer in its article 13-D to have they’re payment reverted under certain assumptions established in the norm. With this reform, the consumer is ensured that, of not obtaining the agreed, the action can be reverted with the reimbursement.

The CPL establishes in its article 21-A and 21-B, special obligations to the providers of Goods and Services that it must be complied prior, during and after the contracting through e-commerce, where it seeks to protect the integrity of the natural persons regarding their personal and credit information. This disposition avoids the abusive practices on the part of the providers, which are also regulated. The breach of these dispositions of this law doesn’t impose a “punishment”; however the regulation is restricted by establishing the so-called “minor infringements” in its article 40 and these are followed by a sanction equivalent to a monthly salary, on the understanding that this conforms 30 ordinary days of job.

With this reform, all LPC infringements, materials and electronic, can be denounced within three years, as any action prescribes, the law gives us the time limit of three years in order to act. We know that our customers are always looking for investment and that many of the acts they celebrate are done through electronic commerce, that is why García & Bodán has a team trained to support them and give them the assurance that they can perform trade acts without worrying about the risks, because we take care that each action is legally supported and every step that is protected by the laws.

David Claros Flores
Associate
García & Bodán
El Salvador