Research On Punitive Compensation Liability For Automobile Sales Fraud

When applying the punitive compensation system to the fraud of automobile sales cases,there exist some issues to be considered.For instance,if automobile buyers are consumers,how to identify the fraud behaviors of operators,how to decide the amount of punitive compensation and so on.It finds the phenomenon that there are different judgments for the same case in the fraud of automobile sales though studying the judgment documents.The phenomenon demonstrates that there are some problems in the application of punitive damages in the field of automobile sales in China,such as the ambiguous scope of application,the unclear standard of fraud identification,and the inconsistency of the standard in punitive damages.The scope of punitive damages for automobile sales fraud is not clear.Firstly,from the perspective of subject,according to the definition of consumers,legal persons could be the purchaser of general consumer goods,while the consumers in the field of automobile sales only include natural persons except legal persons.Secondly,from the perspective of object,punitive damages should not be applied to natural persons who purchase cars for business purposes.The use of a vehicle purchased by a natural person shall be presumed to be the purpose of family life,except the operator provides evidence to the contrary.The standard of automobile sales fraud is not clear.The objective elements of automobile sales fraud should be divided into act fraud and omission fraud,The subjective elements of automobile sales fraud should include intention and gross negligence.If consumers prove the existence of vehicle defects,it will be presumed that the operators cheat.The operators should bear the burden of proof for their subjective fault and the performance of informing obligation.The calculation standard of punitive damages is not uniform.The application of base and multiple of punitive damages are disordered because the amount of punitive damages adopts the flexible standard model,and there are many factors influencing the amount of punitive damages.Different types of punitive damages should be applied to overall fraud and partial fraud,and different compensation multiples should be applied according to the subjective fault degree of operator fraud.