Subscribe to My Feed
Loading ...IDEC Calls for National Do-Not-Call List
Saturday, March 28th, 2009Brazil’s premier national consumer group, the Consumer Defense Institute (IDEC), is calling for a national do-not-call registry to allow Brazilian consumers to stop telemarketing calls to their phones. Last October São Paulo State adopted a skeletal law (“skeletal” because the governor line-item vetoed much of it) creating such a registry for consumers in that state. […]
PROCON: Firms Still Not Obeying Customer Service Rules
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009Recently Brazil’s Justice Ministry (MJ) warned firms that they better get fully into compliance with the customer service decree (“SAC Decree” or “call center decree”) and its related portarias. Now the consumer protection authority (PROCON) of Brazil’s economic powerhouse, São Paulo (SP), reports on where compliance stands after the Ministry warning and its efforts to […]
Public Ministry Opens Inquiry into Marketing of Breakfast Cereals
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Based on filings submitted by the Alana Institute, the consumer group PROTESTE and the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), the Public Ministry (PM) of the State of São Paulo has opened an investigation into the marketing practices of Nestle and Kellogs regarding their breakfast cereals. Alana and PROTESTE tested 18 breakfast cereals of three […]
São Paulo Rejoins the National Consumer Information System
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009In a recent post on Brazil’s consumer agencies putting consumer complaints on the internet, I mentioned that the National System of Consumer Defense Information (Sistema Nacional de Informações de Defesa do Consumidor – SINDEC) behind the move is missing a few states, most notably São Paulo (SP), the state representing some 40% of the national […]
Justice Ministry to Service Firms: Improve Customer Service, or Else
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009Regulated service sectors are not complying with Brazil’s new rules on customer service, despite being given a (brief) grace period in order to bring their operations into line. So declared the Justice Ministry’s (MJ) Department of Protection of Consumer Rights (DPDC), which is now handing out fines, naming names, scrutinizing practices and issuing warnings. The […]
LAC Consumer Protection Agencies Agree to Increase Cooperation
Friday, December 26th, 2008When I wrote my Overview of Consumer Law in LAC and Overview of Consumer Authorities in LAC, I somehow overlooked any mention of regional efforts to get the consumer protection authorities (where they exist) to work together. Let me rectify that first with this post here, and then with appropriate amendments to those two standalone […]
New Brazilian Rules on Pharmaceutical Marketing
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008Brazil’s Health Minister, José Gomes Temporão, and the head of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), Dirceu Raposo, recently announced new rules on pharmaceutical marketing in that country to replace less ambitious ones adopted in 2000. The new rules aim at substantially changing how medicines are promoted in Latin America’s largest pharma market, and may […]
OAS & Consumers International Sign Cooperation Accord / La OEA y CI
Friday, November 7th, 2008Synopsis in English: On Wednesday the Organization of American States (OAS) and Consumers International (CI) signed a cooperation agreement to undertake joint actions to promote and protect consumer rights in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Both parties emphasized the impact transborder transactions are having on LAC consumers and the need to develop and promote […]
US and Brazil to Cooperate on Product Safety
Saturday, November 1st, 2008Last week an interesting memorandum of understanding (MOU) on product safety cooperation was signed between Brazil’s National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Instituto Nacional de Metrologia, Normalização e Qualidade Industrial – Inmetro) and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Inmetro is the Brazilian federal institution responsible for the development and implementation of […]
Brazilian States Publicize Consumer Complaints
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008In September the 21 Brazilian state consumer agencies (known in Brazil as “Procons”) belonging to the National System of Consumer Defense Information (Sistema Nacional de Informações de Defesa do Consumidor – SINDEC) opened (mostly on the internet) their registries of consumer complaints, including their rankings of which firms were the subject of the greatest number […]