The Journal of Modern Research on Administrative Law

The Journal of Modern Research on Administrative Law

Consumer protection by standardizing the articles of association of companies from the perspective of administrative law

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 PhD Student in Private Law, Maragheh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
2 Assistant Professor of Law, Maragheh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Private Law, Maragheh Branch, Islamic Azad University, Maragheh, Iran
10.22034/mral.2022.549962.1284
Abstract
The end consumer of goods/services has rights that are based on access to quality goods / services and reasonable prices. One of the ways to protect consumer rights can be to standardize the articles of association of companies providing goods/services and mention the obligations in this legal document. This research for the first time in an analytical-descriptive method seeks to investigate the possibility of protecting consumer rights with the solution of standardizing the articles of association of companies from the perspective of administrative law. It was concluded that the administrative bodies in charge of companies providing goods / services may be public or public, and the private sector usually has no place in the oversight of businesses. With this action, consumer rights can be mentioned as an obligation in the company's articles of association. Therefore, the responsibility of partners and managers of companies towards the consumer is limited, and the registration of this statute in the management of companies will mean the transfer of responsibility to society. In this case, the administrative challenges of companies regarding consumer rights are minimized and during the judicial action, the main culprits can be dealt with appropriately. Government or public trustees have sometimes acted independently, which in order to counter parallelism, it is necessary to designate administrative regulations, appoint a single institution as the main trustee of supervision, and determine the vertical or horizontal status of administrative relations.

Highlights

The final consumer of goods / services has rights that are based on access to quality goods / services and reasonable prices. There are many conflicts between protectionist institutions and protectionist laws that make it difficult to protect consumer rights. In fact, there is a need for a comprehensive legal resource and a responsible and committed body, which seems that by standardizing the articles of association of companies, while establishing a suitable legal source, the supplier can be legally committed. This descriptive-analytical study seeks to investigate the possibility of protecting consumer rights with the solution of standardizing the articles of association of companies from the perspective of administrative law. The administrative bodies in charge of companies providing goods / services may be public or public, and the private sector usually has no place in the oversight of businesses. These institutions have the right to unify the statutes according to their duties and the broad interpretation of them. With this action, consumer rights can be mentioned as an obligation in the company's articles of association. Therefore, with the standardization of the articles of association, the legal obligation of the suppliers will be established and the right of supervision of the responsible organization will be specified. In this way, the administrative law solution will be open to protect consumer rights. In this case, the administrative challenges of companies regarding consumer rights are minimized and during the judicial action, the main culprits can be dealt with appropriately. Government or public trustees have sometimes acted independently, which in order to counter parallelism, it is necessary to designate administrative regulations, appoint a single institution as the main trustee of supervision, and determine the vertical or horizontal status of administrative relations.

Citizens' needs are met, either by domestic production or by imports. Sometimes in the organized actions of product / service providers, monopolies arise and the interests of investors take precedence over consumer rights. In this situation, consumers are in a weak position and their liquidity is unfairly directed to the pockets of suppliers. All over the world, governments have exercised their legal powers to protect consumer rights, which are part of citizenship rights, and, in the absence of legal loopholes, have enacted laws to protect consumer rights. In our country, the law was approved in 2009. Firstly, the relatively late adoption of this law, and secondly, some of the literature of this law has been criticized, which provides grounds for abuse by suppliers. Third, the government's executive powers in this regard are unclear, and based on some old legal sources, measures have been taken that are insufficient to protect consumer rights.

The effect of the contract form on contractual liability has been proven, as well as the formal effect of the statute in French law, and this country was considered a pioneer in accrediting the statute form.

In our country, various institutions are responsible for protecting consumer rights. The Standards Organization, for its part, does not issue endorsements for low quality goods / services. The Consumer Protection Agency mainly oversees pricing issues. The State Penitentiary Organization, like the judiciary, sometimes issues independent rulings in dealing with offenders. The inspection organization also sometimes gets involved and deals with violators by filing a case. However, the judiciary, as the main executors of justice, has no place in protecting consumer rights, and their duty is mainly highlighted when receiving complaints.

Previously, standardization of banks' articles of association was considered a solution for better supervision of the central bank.

The result of the argument is that different administrative institutions are responsible for protecting consumer rights in different ways, sometimes acting in parallel with each other, and finally that consumer expectations are usually not met, which means the inefficiency of these institutions is an administrative challenge.

It seems that while standardizing the articles of association of companies, measures can be taken to protect consumer rights. Pasban (1398) stated in his book that the owners of commercial companies have usually written articles of association that are not effective at all due to insufficient legal literacy.

The issue of unifying contract law at the international level has already been examined and it has been suggested that it can also be effective in corporate affairs. But at the same time, the limitations of corporate responsibility have been specified.

It is clear that standardization of corporate articles of association can be one of the ways to protect consumer rights. Elsewhere, the standardization of the rights of commercial companies in the field of steel exports in France was examined. Elsewhere, the role of legislative factors on the contractual form was mentioned.

 

In this study, it is assumed that the protection of consumer rights while standardizing the articles of association is possible. Other administrative challenges of consumer protection are beyond the scope of the present study, and the proposed solution is discussed here. This research is innovative in its kind, because so far no attention has been paid to the standardization strategy of companies in order to protect consumer rights, which is part of the executive-administrative affairs. The research question is how standardization of companies' articles of association is possible and how it will lead to the protection of consumer rights. At the same time, what are the challenges of this proposed solution? First, while reviewing the principles of the constitution and consumer rights, the administrative procedure of this action has been reviewed and its challenges have been analyzed.

Keywords
Subjects

 
 
Agham Mohammadi, Farshad; A Study of a Limited Liability Company in Iranian and Turkish Law, 2018, Master Thesis, Qazvin Higher Education Institute. [In Persian].
Alavi, H. Delivery terms in transport process of export trade and their effect on the risk of discrepancy in documentary letters of credit; evidence from Estonia, 2018‏
Alsan, Mustafa; Principles of the Institute for the Standardization of Private Law on International Trade Contracts and the Coordination of International Sale Law, International Law Journal, 2009, pp. 321-335. [In Persian].
ANYOGU, F., & AGUBOSIM, B. C. A CRITICAL OVERVIEW OF THE FEDERAL COMPETITION AND CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT. INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE (IRLJ), 2021, 3(3).‏
Arai, Massoud; Mohammadi, Pejman; Mazarei, Gholam Hassan; Legal Principles Governing Partnership Agreements in Administrative Law of Iran, Scientific Quarterly of Modern Administrative Law Research, Volume 3, 2021, pp. 61-84 [In Persian].
Bagheri, Mahmoud; Javidan Darogar, Ali Reza; Law of Banking Companies with Emphasis on Critique and Review of the Sample Articles of Association of the Central Bank, Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 18, 2017, pp. 105-118. [In Persian].
Cahyo, D. D., & Bawono, B. T. A Justice Reform In Consumer Protection In Development Of Financial Technology. Law Development Journal, 20213(3), 475-480.‏
Choi, S. B. Korean Legal Approach to the Electronic Bill of Lading to Solve the Crisis of the Bill of Lading in Letter of Credit Transactions. 인터넷전자상거래연구, 2017, 17،2،, 201-220.
Csete, J., & Elliott, R. Consumer protection in drug policy: The human rights case for safe supply as an element of harm reduction. International Journal of Drug Policy,2021, 91, 102976.‏
Darabpour, Mehrab; Principles and Foundations of International Trade Law, Tehran: Third Edition, 2018. [In Persian].
Dunn, J. P., Ledford, S., Jackson, S. H., & Wood, A. G. U.S. Patent Application No. 2018, 15/711,416.‏
Forsström, D., Spångberg, J., Petterson, A., Brolund, A., & Odeberg, J. A systematic review of educational programs and consumer protection measures for gambling: an extension of previous reviews. Addiction Research & Theory,2021, 29(5), 398-412.‏
Hamdollahi, Asif; Illegal Trade Law, Tehran, Third Edition, 2017. [In Persian].
Hassanzadeh, Bahram; Jurisprudence and the study of the legal system governing company registration, Legal Research, Volume 41, 2020, pp. 439-469. [In Persian].
Jalali, Mahmoud; Shakoori, Masoumeh; The process of unification of contract law at the international level, Quarterly Journal of Private Law Research, Volume 3, 2013, pp. 155-171. [In Persian].
Jalali, Mahmoud; Shakoori, Masoumeh; The process of unification of contract law at the international level, Quarterly Journal of Private Law Research, Volume 3, 2013, pp. 155-171. [In Persian].
Javadi, Amir; International Trade Law, Tehran, Third Edition, 2019. [In Persian].
Jin, G. Z., & Wagman, L. Big data at the crossroads of antitrust and consumer protection. Information Economics and Policy,2021, 54, 100865.‏
Kaviani, Cyrus; Commercial Companies Law, Tehran, First Edition, 2019. [In Persian].
Ma, S., Chai, Y., Wang, J., & Duan, Y ; New digital infrastructure, cross-border e-commerce and global vision of creating Electronic World Trade Platform. Global Trade and Customs Journal, 2018, 13،4،, 157-167.‏
Mehrabi, Mokhtar, Consumer Rights in Iran, 5th International Conference on Accounting and Management and 2nd Conference on Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation, Tehran, 2016. [In Persian].
Miri Qaleh Sari, Seyed Hassan; Ehsanpour, Seyed Reza; Ismaili, Mehdi; The position of the General Inspection Organization in the fight against corruption and the realization of civil rights, medical law, Volume 14, 2020, pp. 301-311. [In Persian].
Morshedi, Mehdi; Goldozian, Iraj; The Status of Observing the Accused Citizenship Rights in Police Investigations in the Light of the Criminal Procedure Code of 2013, West Azerbaijan Disciplinary Knowledge Quarterly, Volume 28, 2015, pp. 59-94. [In Persian].
Nasehi, Meysam; Faqih Habibi, Ali; Honesty, Saturn; A Reflection on the Independence of Local Units from the Perspective of the General Board of the Court of Administrative Justice, Scientific Quarterly of Modern Administrative Law Research, Volume 3, 2020, pp. 39-64. [In Persian].
Nguyen, D. T. FINANCIAL LITERACY AND FINANCIAL CONSUMER PROTECTION-A LITERATURE REVIEW AND SOME RECOMMENDATIONS FOR VIETNAM.‏2021. .
Pasban, Mohammad Reza; Commercial Companies Law, Tehran, First Edition, 2019. [In Persian].
Pasban, Mohammad Reza; Farrokhi, Seyed Hadi; Beigi Habibabadi, Ahmad; A Comparative Study of Minority Shareholder Rights in the Breakdown of Joint Stock Companies (Iran and the United Kingdom) Private Law Research, Volume 7, 2019, pp. 87-112. [In Persian].
Seyed Ahmadi Sajjadi, Seyed Ali; Comparison of Civil Company and Commercial Company, Comparison of Civil Company and Commercial Company in Iranian Law, Journal of Qom Higher Education Complex, Volume 4, 1999, pp. 1-25. [In Persian].
Shirvi, Abdul Hussein; International Trade Law, Tehran, Second Edition, 2019. [In Persian].
Tusi, Abbas; Economic Analysis of Corporate Law, Tehran, First Edition, 2014. [In Persian].
                                                                                                                  
 
Volume 5, Issue 15 - Serial Number 15
Fifth year, 15th issue, ّSummer 2023
Spring 2023
Pages 297-321

  • Receive Date 04 March 2022
  • Revise Date 26 June 2022
  • Accept Date 07 July 2022