Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers Act 2023
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PART 2 Qualified entities | ||
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Designation of qualified entities | ||
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8. (1) An organisation (in this section referred to as an “applicant”) may apply to the Minister to be designated as a qualified entity for the purposes of taking domestic representative actions or taking cross-border representative actions, or both, if— | ||
(a) it is a legal person and can demonstrate in the application 12 months of actual public activity in the protection of consumer interests prior to the application, | ||
(b) its main purpose is one that demonstrates that it has a legitimate interest in protecting consumer interests provided for in a relevant enactment, | ||
(c) it has a non-profit-making character, | ||
(d) it is not the subject of insolvency proceedings and has not been declared insolvent, | ||
(e) it is independent and is not influenced by persons other than consumers, in particular by traders, who have an economic interest in the bringing of any representative action, including in the event of funding by third parties, and, to that end, it has established procedures to prevent such influence as well as to prevent conflicts of interest between itself, its funding providers and the interests of consumers, and | ||
(f) it makes publicly available in plain and intelligible language by any appropriate means, in particular on its website, information that demonstrates that it complies with the matters referred to in paragraphs (a) to (e) and information about the sources of its funding in general, its organisational, management and membership structure, its statutory purpose (if any) and its activities. | ||
(2) An application for designation under subsection (1) shall be made in the prescribed form. | ||
(3) At any time after receiving an application and before determining the application, the Minister may by notice in writing require the applicant to provide additional information to him or her and where the Minister does so, the applicant shall comply with that requirement. | ||
(4) The Minister may— | ||
(a) designate an organisation as a qualified entity, the subject of an application under subsection (1), where he or she is satisfied of the matters specified in that subsection, or | ||
(b) subject to section 9 , refuse to designate an organisation as a qualified entity, the subject of an application under subsection (1), where he or she is not so satisfied. | ||
(5) Where the Minister designates an organisation as a qualified entity under subsection (4)(a), he or she shall notify the qualified entity in writing of the designation. | ||
(6) A designation issued under subsection (4)(a) shall come into effect on the date of the making of such designation. | ||
(7) In this section, “legal person” means— | ||
(a) a legal person established in the State, or | ||
(b) a legal person established in accordance with the national law of a Member State (other than the State). |