On Legal Protection Of Parallel Imported Automobile Consumers’ Rights And Interests

Parallel imported cars had been in the “grey market” during the past 20 years. On August 1st 2014, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce(“SAIC”) promulgated an announcement, which took into effect on October 1st, to stop the filing work of all the car sole distributors and authorized dealers. Their business scope expended from “car dealers of **brand” to “car dealers”. This announcement unties the car dealers. They don’t need to be controlled by a sole automotive maker and can run a business of multi car brands. Under this condition, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce announced a notice to on go the parallel trade, which means the “grey market” of parallel cars finally turned to be a legal market. Tianjin, Fujian, Guangdong also legalized the parallel imported car trade.Due to the relatively low price and the diversity of models, the numbers of consumers of parallel imported cars started to grow. Meanwhile, the problems showed up. First, the consumers cannot fully acquire the information of all the cars. Different from those “regular cars”, parallel imported cars are imported directly from abroad, all the dimensions are refer to foreign standards before being modified. Since car is a kind of complicated and valuable goods, consumers have no chance to fully learn all the dimensions of the cars they’ve bought. At the same time, during the localization process, car dealers are very likely to use fake or bad parts. Second, since no standards, it is very hard for consumers to make a fair deal with those dealers. Different from the traditional “car maker-car dealer” sales model, parallel importers’ qualifications are unknown. Some markets even have “patchwork”: unqualified dealers first lobby the consumers, and then make money from reselling. This model obviously damaged the legal right of the consumers. What’s more, parallel imported car dealers choose the car brands and models by themselves, and import special car models under the requirement of consumers. They control the right of pricing and leave limited space for consumers to bargain. Third, since the car is special consumer goods, the personal rights and property rights of consumers are easily to be damaged. As one of the most important parts, engine is adapted to different oils in different countries. It is uncertain that whether the parallel imported cars can adapt to Chinese oil or not. This uncertainty may create huge losses to consumers if the answer is no. All the parallel cars need localized modification before they are finally delivered to consumers. While any problem caused in the process of localized modification can be threaten to consumers. Last but not least, the aftersales service is another important problem. Not only the damages caused by consumers themselves but also the “Sanbao” and recalls are great problems in parallel imported cars market. It is hard to say that the existed legal system can fully protect the legal rights of consumers if the aforementioned problems still exist.Although the parallel imported cars are legal in China, there are no special laws to protect those relevant consumers. As a fundamental law, the Law on the Protection of Consumer’s Interests and rights regulates the basic ways to protect consumer’s interests and rights without the special rules to protect car consumers, let alone the rules about protecting parallel imported car consumers. There is only a chapter of The Road Traffic Safety Law regulates the necessary certificates before a car can really going on the road. In accordance with the Road Traffic Safety Law, there is no difference from a car and a parallel imported car. Provisions on the Administration of Recall of Defective Auto Products and Provisions on the Liability for the Repair, Replacement and Return of Household Automotive Products(“Sanbao” Law) give special protection to car consumers. Although these two laws didn’t expressly exclude, it’s still very difficult to expand its jurisdiction to include those parallel imported car consumers. For example, how the recalls conducted abroad expanded to domestic, how to decide the applicable law, as well as who has to be responsible for the “Sanbao”… The existed law system cannot fully solve these important problems.There are mature systems regarding car consumers in the EU and the USA, among which the “Lemon Laws” is very famous and useful. Consumers can replace or return the defected car, and those cars can be sold again with a label of “lemon car”. Parallel imported cars are legal in Japan. Their detail rules of how to protect parallel imported car consumers are important references to us.This article studied the reality of Chinese parallel imported car market and potential damages to consumer’s rights by research, review and other methods. This article raised some legal based suggestions with regarding parallel imported car consumers’ protection and also gave some suggestions.