On the photo: Mr. Ayman Alfalasi, Business Protection Expert; Mr. Ahmed Naji Abdulghani Alammari, Manager Business awareness section; Mr. Saif Baig DED Member; Mrs. Valeria Di Santo, IBCD Director; Mr. Gianpaolo Bruno, Trade Commissioner to the UAE, Oman and Pakistan at the Italian Trade Agency; Mr. Castelli Alberto, IBCD Member.
On 25th September 2017 the Italian Business Council of Dubai & Northern Emirates and the Commissioner of the Italian Trade Agency, Gianpaolo Bruno, had the occasion to meet the members of the Consumer Protection Division of DED. The purpose of the meeting was to promote and develop a successful collaboration with the Government to prevent and fight against counterfeit products at all levels. It was furthermore suggested to cooperate in stabilising a protective business environment for consumers and business owners, by introducing commercial dispute settlement, fraud prevention, IP and copy right protection services for Dubai businesses.
The Consumer Protection Division of the Department of Economic Development promotes consumer protection and fair trading in Dubai by:
- Providing information and advice to consumers and retailers/sellers about their rights and responsibilities
- Helping consumers resolve disputes with retailers/sellers;
- Investigating complaints about unfair trading practices;
- Regulating business activities;
The most common queries that Consumer Protection division receives from the public are about everyday experiences related to purchasing Goods and Services. The information on this website should answer most questions consumers have regarding their rights and responsibilities when shopping:
http://www.consumerrights.ae/en/Aboutus/AboutConsumerRights/Pages/default.aspx
The main mission of the Consumer Protection division is to create an environment for sustainable economic development to enhance the welfare and prosperity of Dubai and the UAE, and ensure that both consumers and retailers comply with rights, and understand their responsibilities.
The department has 5 mains sections:
- Business Protection
- Intellectual Property Protection
- Consumer Protection
- Commercial Compliance
- Development and follow-up
Business Protection Section operations is concentrated in particular on the business protection inspection activity, which was started on 2015 and the main aim is to provide a commercial dispute settlement service in Dubai.
This assistance is able to provide a resolution service for the companies having economic disputes, and is able to resolve disputes within 10 working days. Moreover the cost of this type of service is cheaper than the same procedure in the court or in the Economic Chamber.
In the year 2016 the Business Protection division received 1555 commercial complains, of which 1366 were local and 189 international. The amount of resolved cases in 2016 reached 8 MM AED.
There are certain complaints, which are not in competence of Business Protection section, such as:
- Return Checks
- Electronic crimes
- Construction and technical services
Intellectual property Rights Division
One of the sections of the Division is “Intellectual Property Rights” with the main role to protect intellectual property rights of companies, confiscate counterfeit products, protect the trademark owners and agencies as well as consumers and businesses from commercial fraud.
Consumer Protection Division
This sector has the role to ensure that the consumer and retailers similarly comply with the Consumer Code of Rights according to the UAT consumer protection Federal Law. Their role is in providing information and advice to consumers and retailers/sellers about their rights and responsibilities, help resolving disputes between the consumers & retailers/ sellers and to investigate complaints about unfair trading practices.
Commercial Compliance Division
The main task of this section is to conduct field visits, ensure the commitments of business requirement and laws of promotional events and provide commercial Compliance and Consumer protection sector services in Dubai.