Fair conditions of contract

It is central to any system of consumer protection that a potential customer is given only tmthful and accurate information about the goods and services tiiat he is wanting to buy. Even before Parliament had decided to intervene, tile courts had already decided to allow a remedy where a contract had been induced by fraud or misrepresentation. Where a consumer has been duped into entering a contract through deception of the kind practised by some salesmen, he would be given the right to put an end to the contract and claim compensation for any loss which he may have suffered. This development in the courts was eventually confirmed by the Misrepresentation Act 1967 . 

Valuable though these controls were, they applied only to what is called the civil law, i.e. the law which regulates the relations between citizens. Where a consumer had been the victim of fraud or misrepresentation, the initiative lay entirely upon him to take remedial action. It was only with the advent of the Trade Descriptions Act that the criminal law came to the aid of the consumer in such cases. 

The main feature of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, is to penalise the use of false trade descriptions. Section 2 of the Act contains an exhaustive list of what constitutes a false trade description for the purposes of the Act. Anything not in tire list is not a trade description for the purposes of the Act. The list includes any statement as to  

Included within this list shall be matters concerning  

Quantity is defined to include length, width, height, area, volume, capacity, weight and number. 

---