Source: Diario Financiero. 

At the San Joaquín Cultural Center, with an amphitheater full, mainly of senior citizens, today the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric, signed the “Sernac protects you” bill, which seeks to promote the rights of consumers.

The proposal, in general lines, aims to endow the service with the sanctioning power.

How will it work? In detail, it is sought that the body can sanction companies that violate the rights of consumers in individual cases, and may order the return of the money paid by them, in addition to other measures to prevent future breaches.

“I would like to give trade peace of mind, because we know that many times these laws can create uncertainty,” said President Boric.

“The current project is technically sound, it takes over the observations that the TC made at the time,” he added.

To achieve this, a “modern and expeditious” administrative procedure will be created, which will take as a reference the experience of other bodies with similar powers.

According to what was explained by the director of Sernac, Andrés Herrera, the procedures will be processed by a new Sanctioning Procedure Sub-directorate of the service, which will be made up of professionals in charge of receiving and collecting the necessary information to decide whether or not to sanction, according to conformity to the law.

How long will this instance take to provide a solution? As Herrera explained, the term established by law for an administrative procedure should be taken as a reference and there we can be talking about a maximum of six months. We obviously hope to make the sanctioning procedures that we instruct more efficient, in fact it is possible that certain procedures can also be accumulated regarding the same issues, in such a way as to make a very agile procedure with adequate responses.

The legislative proposal. which will soon enter Congress, in addition, it seeks to establish the obligation of companies to have a claims management system, distinguishing by the size of the companies.

Focus on intermediaries

It is not the only thing: it also seeks to increase the responsibility of intermediary platforms, that is, those firms that operate as mediators with customers (such as marketplace and delivery applications, for example), which according to the proposal must also give response to consumers for the products purchased through them, improving the ability to respond to consumers.

“The project seeks to solve a problem that has plagued us for a long time, said Herrera. emphasizing that the proposal “is for and by the people.”

Boric: A “solid” project

After Herrera’s words, it was the president Gabriel Boric who addressed the general guidelines of the proposal before the citizens of San Joaquín and the business leaders present.

The president spoke directly to this last group.

“I would also like to give trade peace of mind, because we know that many times these laws can generate uncertainty. The current project is technically sound. takes charge of the observations made at the time by the Constitutional Court regarding a previous initiative to strengthen Sernac, and experts such as José Roa, former director of Sernac, Enrique Barros, an academic at the University of Chile and an expert in law participated in its design non-contractual, the comptroller Ramiro Mendoza”, said Boric, stressing that the institution “will not be judge and party”.