Essay Sample on Consumer Protection: Safeguarding Rights & Fairness in Trade

Introduction

Consumer protection is a set of laws established to protect and safeguard consumers' rights and ensure that there is fairness in trade, competition, and accuracy of market information. These laws and regulations aimed at making sure that business fraudsters do not gain advantages from their acts over their competitors. Consumer protection offers protection to individuals, and groups of people are considered most vulnerable in society. Governments make these laws to make sure that consumers of market products make rational and informed decisions before making their purchases. Consumer protection laws are enforced by the government that makes them through their court or legal systems and by consumer protection agencies (Howells and Weatherill, 2017, p. 13.). These laws ensure that there is a harmonious relationship between consumers and businesses that produce goods and services. It is also a way of improving and encouraging healthy competition in businesses. Consumer protection is recognized and protected by the law. It is a process that follows a legal procedure.

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Frivolous lawsuits, on the other hand, are cases that lack legal support and merit. In the business world, commentators argue that frivolous lawsuits as cases that require a direction they are small cases that have very minimal chances for victory. Many of these cases are filed by individuals who have a motive of making money from suing corporations (Arena and Ferris 2017, p.20). In many cases, frivolous lawsuits are registered by individuals against big business corporations.

Strict consumer protection, at times, becomes too much for businesses in the international market. The law becomes too much, and it becomes impossible to run the business in some instances. In such cases, it becomes inevitable to make use of frivolous lawsuits to find a way out. In the business world and environment, lawyers tend to be enterprising, and they manipulate these laws so that they can reap significant sums of money from filing consumer protection cases in the courts at the expense of taxpayers. To some extent, consumer protection is highly significant for a healthy business environment that ensures and facilitates consumer satisfaction and healthy market competition for businesses based on their competencies. On the other hand, frivolous lawsuits should also be allowed to make sure that companies are competent enough and do not leave behind any information that is vital for a consumer's knowledge when using their products. Both options are, however, clouded with politics that bring several challenges that cause retardation of businesses or undermining of consumers.

Consumer protection is mushrooming in more significant numbers as the government makes new laws to protect consumers. These laws are significantly beneficial to consumers as they protect them against exploitation. Consumer protection comes with several benefits that consumers enjoy.

To start with, a consumer gets all the information they require about a particular product before they can make a purchase. This aspect could be provided by the business that sells or manufactures that specific product or the government. The government makes a requirement that businesses must meet for a particular product, and the presence of these products in the market would imply that they have all the conditions as stipulated in the law. The information that the consumer has about a product, in this case, should be accurate and not misleading (Picciotto 2017, p. 30).

Secondly, under proper consumer protection, marketing of products and services is carried out only to the correct target audience. This strategy is an implication that those consumers who are susceptible to being tricked will not fall victims of ignorant consumption. This concept of consumer protection aims at protecting the elderly, consumers living with a disability, and gullible users of products and services. In this case, the idea of appropriateness is used to determine what should happen during marketing.

Equality is highly upheld in consumer protection in that there is no gender discrimination when carrying out product advertisements. The product adverts are carried out in many different mediums to make sure that it reaches a high number of consumers as possible so that it is recognizable.

Lastly, consumers are not subjected to unfavorable contracts. The enterprise and the consumer must first agree before they can carry Out any transaction. The meaning of this is that a consumer must first make an order so that the business can meet that order and not the other way round where a company brings a consumer goods they did not order and have no use for, and they are forced to pay for them.

Primarily, apart from protecting consumers, consumer protection laws also indirectly safeguard a business. The most outstanding benefit a company finds from consumer protection is that it upholds its reputation.

If done and carried out excessively and with too much sensitivity, consumer protection can become too much and cause harm to the stakeholders of international trade. The damage is realized when lawsuits are filed in courts in higher numbers for claims of violated consumer protection laws. When businesses face charges for violating consumer rights, they are held liable for paying the fees of the case in court. Secondly, a lot of taxpayers money goes in court to serve the court activities in handling these cases(Pridgen 2018, p. 40). The average person who had no take in the development of these cases finds himself suffering since he is made to pay for them indirectly through high taxes. The cases inflict more damage to the economy while offering only speculative benefits depending on the parties involved in the intensity of the cases. If a solution is found, it is often quick but expensive.

Consequently, consumers take advantage of these laws to exploit businesses. Since the law offers protection for them, they liaise with enterprising lawyers to seek compensations for minor issues that arise from the violation of their rights as consumers. Due to the increased cases of such incidences, lawsuits pile up in courts. This becomes a problem to the legal system as they have loads and loads of cases to resolve. This situation cold call for the addition of judges and attorneys in the courts to speed up the legal process. This, with no doubt, is an expensive practice for many economies in the world.

In past cases, customers have been found to sue businesses and request for very high compensations. A consumer could give a contract to a particular company, and when the company breaches the agreement, the consume or customer files a case in court demanding to be compensated seven or even ten times the value of the contract by the company. This is absurd as well as unacceptable in international trade. It however happens, and the legal system gets along with it well. Given the growth of the international business, consumer protection should not be too strict. Consumers should be protected, yes, but with a certain level of moderation that allows consideration for both the consumer and the business in question (Howells 2019, p. 36). However, if strict consumer protection laws find implementation by the day, international trade growth will be derailed and curtailed to lower levels of growth since a lot of resources will find use in handling of consumer protection cases and compensation of angry consumers as demanded or ruled by the courts.

Considering the issues that arise from strict consumer protection, an alternative way of handling these cases should find use in the court systems. For international trade to thrive, both the business and the consumer should have satisfaction. This calls for a value of honesty by both parties so that the consumers and the businesses are in freedom to negotiate business deals, make good bargains, inspect, and examine the quality of goods and negotiate good and favorable contractual terms. In a situation where only one party finds its way at the expense of the other, unfairness in trade thrives, and this causes some conflicts as the offended parties are often dissatisfied because of discrimination in the court (Ong and Teh 2016, p. 47). In simpler terms, frivolous lawsuits should be allowed in international trade to solve consumer and business conflicts in a way that does not retard the growth of international trade.

Frivolous lawsuits find their base on small issues that often seem to lack a direction in the legal system. The lawyers and attorneys must commit themselves and consider the case filed frivolously. There is a legitimate way to solve these lawsuits, and the cases also lack a precedent case that may assist in solving such a situation. However, when properly cultivated and tended to. The frivolous lawsuit grows to a massive case that requires judicial attention.

Critics have a lot to argue against the use of frivolous lawsuits. First, they say that frivolous lawsuits have no control for the lack of common judicial standards. They term frivolous litigation as the most dangerous evil of the legal system as it leads to enormous backlogs of cases in courts, extended trial times, and high costs of trials.

Secondly, critics argue that for the lack of adequate information and regulatory zeal, the case is bound to be fraught with imminent danger. Therefore, courts cannot make a sound policy based on conjecture and anecdote. This is because we cannot make a clear and precise prediction on the costs and benefits of the filed suit (Bruns 2017). A system with clarity should, therefore, be in existence to define how frivolous lawsuits are presented and the necessity of filing frivolous lawsuits in the first place.

Frivolous lawsuits are also disregarded by many for their lack of substance at face value. It happens that a frivolous lawsuit looks exaggerated by the party that files the case. It could be a case for minor damage that could have been resolved in a one on one confrontation between the parties involved, but the offended parties decide to file a case in court. A minor issue, therefore, calls for judicial attention that could have been otherwise being used in handling a severe and significant case in courts. The small case, therefore, calls for high costs for lawyers to seek information and evidence to back the lawsuit and give it substance and weight in the court.

Lastly, those who file frivolous lawsuits file them with the knowledge that the case they are presenting is a frivolous lawsuit. Necessarily, when a plaintiff files a frivolous lawsuit, they do not take the action of first carrying out an adequate investigation. Often, plaintiffs do not make an inquiry on their case, which is a requirement when filing a case that one has no certainty. This may lower their credibility since they omit investigation even in situations where research is highly feasible.

Conclusion

Generally, the disregard for frivolous lawsuits by many people comes from the fact that these litigations emanate from issues that people consider to be frivolous even before the cases are filed or given insight. This is a negative effect on frivolous lawsuits. In any case, it is prudent to have faith in the lawsuits filed and allow the case to proceed and see how it is going to fare.