§3.4.2 Status of the other contractual party

Article 6a(1) (b) whether the third party offering the goods, services or digital content is a trader or not, on the basis of the declaration of that third party to the provider of the online marketplace; A similar requirement regarding the status of the third party supplier is laid down in the new point (f) of Article 7(4) of the UCPD dealing with the invitation to purchase. The purpose of this information requirement specifically for online marketplaces is to make sure that consumers always know from whom they are buying a good or a service on the online marketplace – a trader or another consumer. An erroneous assumption that the third party supplier is a trader can cause problems for the consumer if something goes wrong with the online purchase (e.g. non-conformity of the goods) and if it then turns out that consumer protection rules, such as the right to withdraw within 14 days or the legal guarantee, actually do not apply to the contract. Both provisions in the CRD and UCPD specify that the information about the status of the third party supplier should be based on a declaration of that supplier that the online marketplace then transmits to the consumer. Therefore, the online marketplace may rely primarily on the declaration provided by the third party supplier. This approach is in line with the prohibition on imposing general monitoring obligations on online intermediaries under the eCommerce Directive (107) to the extent that the relevant provisions of the e-Commerce Directive apply to the online marketplace. At the same time, it is without prejudice to the marketplace’s obligations regarding illegal content, such as acting on the basis of a notice making the platform aware of specific fraudulent offers by traders (108). It should be stressed that Article 6a(1)(b) sets an information requirement to promote clarity for consumers shopping on online marketplaces. The self-declaration is good indicator of the supplier’s legal status but it does not replace the definition of a ‘trader’ that remains to be applied in accordance with the specified criteria. In this respect, reference should be made to point 22 of the UCPD Annex I ‘blacklist’, which prohibits traders from pretending that they are non-traders. This prohibition applies to any incorrect or inaccurate declaration of being a non-trader under this new information rule.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07