We see one of our important commitments to clients as the continuous improvement of the necessary legal knowledge among their teams. This becomes particularly important in the case of consumer law or competition law. The rules in this area can be intricate and complicated, hence the high risk of breaches due to lack of awareness.
As part of such activities, we visited, among others, the Annual Conference of dealers of Hyundai Motor Poland, a long-standing client of ours. The first two-day meeting after a two-year break (due to Covid-19) had a great turnout, which gave us a good chance to up-skill as many of the dealers as possible.
Marta Solarska-Kaleńczuk, COO of our law firm and long-time Hyundai account manager, spoke in front of a group of over 120 people. Marta addressed several important topics related to regulatory changes particularly relevant to the 🚗 automotive industry, including:
1) The Omnibus Directive:
– What challenges it poses to businesses
– How to address these challenges in the automotive sector
2) Changes in consumer law in Poland after 1.01.2023 with the implementation of the Goods and Digital Directives, which define new consumer rights in terms of warranty and guarantee.
When analysing the changes in legislation, we try not only to anticipate potential risks and obligations but to also identify additional opportunities for the client arising from them. We step into the client’s shoes and suggest how to embed the changes into existing processes.
With regard to warranty and guarantee, a clear benefit in our view was, among other things, the introduction of claim tiers. Since the beginning of 2023, it was introduced that, as a first step, the consumer can demand repair or replacement of the item with a new one, and only if these ways prove to be ineffective – withdraw from the contract or demand a price reduction. Prior to this, the customer’s first request could be to withdraw immediately, which is less advantageous and more difficult to process for the dealer as a seller.
This was by far not our first presentation to Hyundai teams and partners. Last year, we attended two major events (presentations were given by Kinga Miller and Ewa Weinar), not counting several dedicated training sessions in small groups. In doing so, we have been extremely pleased with the interest and attention we have received from participants, who actively listened and asked questions. We hope this is (to some extent) because we are constantly polishing our presentations to make them as practical and understandable as possible.
