Consumer market study on the functioning of legal and commercial guarantees for consumers in the EU : country fiche : Sweden

This section describes the transposition of Directive 1999/44/EC on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees in Swedish legislation. The Directive was transposed into Swedish legislation through government bill 2001/02:134, which was later adopted by the Swedish Parliament and entailed subsequent amendments to: the Consumer Sales Act (1990:932), the Consumer Services Act (1985:716) and the Marketing Act (2008:486). The amendment to the Consumer Sales Act meant the introduction of a new rule whereby defects which appear within six months after the delivery of the goods shall be deemed to have existed at the time of the delivery unless otherwise displayed or if it is incompatible with the type of the good or the defect. This is a requirement which is stipulated in Directive 1999/44/EC and means that the burden of proof falls on the consumer after the six month time period. Further amendments entailed that upon purchase the buyer is to be covered by property law protection against the seller's creditors. This is particularly important if the seller would, for example, end up in insolvency. To receive such a protection, it is no longer required that the consumer has received the goods in his possession. In the case of both the Consumer Sales Act as well as the Consumer Services Act, amendments were imposed on the provision on the claim period in order to be in conformity with the requirement of article 5.2 in Directive 1999/44/EC: the new dispositions meant that complaints completed within two months after the consumer has detected a defect shall be regarded as made in a "timely manner". Moreover, further amendments on both Acts entailed that the manufacture of "loose items" exclusively will have their regulation in the Consumer Sales Act. Amendments to the Marketing Act entailed a new provision under which a warranty must contain some specified information presented in a document or in any other durable medium.