Absence of respondents to blame
31/10/2006 NST

PUTRAJAYA: The penalties are stiff, but they still do not comply.

A fine of RM5,000, two years imprisonment or both. This is the penalty a trader or company face if they fail to comply with an award of the Consumer Claims Tribunal, or a developer who fails to honour an award of the Homebuyers Claims Tribunal.

Despite the stiff penalties, there have been 2,424 cases of non- compliance of awards from 2001 to Aug 31 this year at the Consumer Claims Tribunal.

Of this number, 1,213 cases have been registered in court and 313 cases settled either by a court decision or a compound.

A compound is a fine imposed by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry, which the trader or company pays to avoid going to court and is in addition to the amount in the award given by the tribunal.

Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry director of enforcement Roslan Mahayudin said the main reason for this was because awards were given in the absence of the respondent.

"Sometimes the claimant does not even know who to serve the statement of claim and ends up serving it to the wrong party. This results in non-appearance of the respondent and a judgment in default of appearance issued against the wrong respondent," he said.

Other reasons include cases where the respondent has not received the award made against him, the respondent has moved or closed his business.

Once a tribunal decision is made, a party is given 14 days to comply with the judgment, before the aggrieved party can take the matter to the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry’s enforcement division.

Investigations will then be initiated and a report submitted to the Attorney-General’s office for consent to institute proceedings in the magistrate’s court.

"Since non-compliance of an award is a criminal offence, the standard of proof for the prosecution is very high. There have been cases where the Deputy Public Prosecutor has refused to sanction our request to institute proceedings in court as he was not satisfied that there was proper service of the documents on the respondent or if he felt the case had no merit," he said.

Roslan said his division tries to register the case in the court within 14 days of the complaint lodged.

Under Section 117 of the Consumer Protection Act 1999, those who fail to comply with an award are liable to a fine of up to RM5,000, two years’ imprisonment or both.

They are also liable to a maximum RM1,000 fine for each day the offence continues after judgment.

As of August this year, Roslan said there were 86 cases of non-compliance and the ministry had collected RM122,000 in compounds.

From 2001 to Aug 31 2006, there have been 20,992 cases heard at the tribunal.

At the Homebuyers Claims Tribunal, there have been 2,705 (0.16 per cent) cases of non-compliance involving 173 developers as of Aug 31 this year.

And the highest number of non-compliance cases are in Selangor.

There have been 16,551 cases heard at the tribunal and 18,427 cases filed since December 2002.

Housing and Local Government Ministry director for monitoring and enforcement Dr G. Parameswaran said almost 80 per cent of the tribunal decisions are complied with.

"Our biggest problem is the volume of cases as there are complaints of non-compliance of awards every single day.

"However, the numbers of non-compliance of awards are nominal compared to the volume of cases heard at the tribunal," he said.