Introduction
Long approached primarily through the general rules of contract law, competition law, commercial law and tort, consumer protection is now governed, in the Union of the Comoros, by a dedicated legislative framework.
Law No. 26-003/AU on Consumer Protection, adopted by the Assembly of the Union on 15 June 2026, marks a significant development in Comorian economic law. Its ambition is evident from Article 1: to define the fundamental rights of consumers, to determine the obligations of suppliers of goods and services, to organise the participation of consumer associations and to establish mechanisms for protection, oversight and redress.
The scope of the Law goes beyond the mere recognition of individual rights for the consumer.
It progressively establishes a series of obligations directly enforceable against businesses: conformity of goods and services, consumer information, labelling and traceability, warranties, transparency of advertising, regulation of distance selling and sales promotions, invoicing, prohibition of unfair commercial practices and control of unfair contract terms.
This dimension is all the more significant given that the legislature has adopted a particularly broad scope of application. The Law covers all sectors of production, supply, distribution and provision of services carried out on the national territory. It also covers transactions concluded by electronic means between consumers and suppliers, whether public or private. Furthermore, it applies to natural or legal persons, whether or not they have their registered office or establishment in the Comoros, provided that their operations or conduct produce a direct or indirect effect on the Comorian market or on a substantial part of it.
This extension is particularly important given the development of digital services, distance selling and the cross-border provision of services. An operator established abroad could thus fall within the material scope of Comorian legislation without necessarily having a physical presence in the Union, subject, of course, to the conditions of its practical application.
The Law also introduces significant changes at the contractual level.
In particular, it establishes a right of withdrawal of a minimum duration of fourteen days for certain contracts concluded at a distance or away from business premises, institutes a two-year legal guarantee of conformity, regulates terms likely to create a significant imbalance to the consumer's detriment and places on the supplier the burden of demonstrating that a contested term is not abusive.
The reform also has a particularly notable institutional and enforcement dimension. It establishes a National Consumer Protection Authority, placed under the supervision of the ministry responsible for Trade, tasked in particular with monitoring the conformity of goods and services, investigating complaints, carrying out inspections, detecting infringements and imposing sanctions.
Consumer law therefore no longer amounts merely to a set of rights that may be invoked in the context of a dispute between a business and its customer. It is becoming a body of compliance rules that the business must integrate into the organisation of its activities at an early stage, from the design of its contractual documents to the marketing of its goods and services.
This development nevertheless raises several questions. How does this new framework interact with the existing rules of competition law and the general law of contract? What will be the effective scope of the powers conferred on the new National Authority? How will operators need to adapt their contracts, their commercial policies and their internal procedures? Finally, what will be the immediate effectiveness of a regime several aspects of which remain subject to implementing regulations?
The analysis of the Law thus reveals a two-fold development: the establishment of a genuine legal status for the consumer (I) is accompanied by the transformation of compliance obligations imposed on businesses (II), while the establishment of an institutional framework for oversight and enforcement progressively turns consumer protection into a new compliance issue for economic operators (III).
I. The Establishment of a Genuine Legal Status for Consumers
A. A Particularly Broad Scope of Application, Including Digital Activities and Certain Foreign-Based Operators
One of the Law's first contributions lies in the breadth of its scope of application.
Article 2 does not limit the framework to certain categories of commerce or products. It provides that the Law applies to "all sectors of production, supply, distribution and provision of services" carried out on the national territory. Producers and importers, as well as distributors, service providers, financial institutions and operators involved in electronic commerce, may therefore fall within its scope.
The determining criterion is the existence of a relationship between a consumer and a supplier.
The Law defines the consumer as any natural person who purchases or uses a product or service for non-professional purposes. It simultaneously adopts broad definitions of several categories of operators involved in the economic chain, notably the distributor, the manufacturer, the importer, the service provider and the economic operator.
The distinction between B2C relationships and B2B relationships therefore becomes essential for businesses. Not all of their commercial relationships will necessarily fall within the protective regime established by the Law, but those concluded with natural persons acting for non-professional purposes will now need to be examined in light of this new framework.
Article 2 above all introduces two notable extensions.
The first concerns electronic transactions.
The Law expressly indicates that it applies to transactions of goods and services carried out on the national territory or by electronic means. This provision is complemented by several concepts defined by the Law, notably the electronic agreement, the distance contract and distance selling. The latter covers contracts concluded without the simultaneous physical presence of the supplier and the consumer when they primarily use one or more distance communication techniques.
Electronic commerce is therefore not treated as a peripheral activity: it is expressly integrated into consumer law.
This approach is also reflected in the specific provisions devoted to financial and electronic services. Institutions offering credit, financial services or online sales must clearly inform the consumer of the conditions, fees and risks associated with their services.
The second extension is potentially even more significant.
The Law provides that it applies to natural or legal persons "whether or not they have their registered office or establishments in the Comoros", provided that their operations or conduct have a direct or indirect effect on the market or on a substantial part of it.
The legislature thus adopts a criterion based on the effects produced on the Comorian market, rather than one relying exclusively on the territorial establishment of the supplier.
This provision may directly affect foreign businesses that market goods or provide services intended for consumers located in the Comoros, notably through digital platforms or distance selling arrangements.
Its practical scope will, however, need to be assessed with caution. The Law lays down the principle, but its implementation vis-à-vis an operator lacking a physical presence in the Comoros will necessarily raise questions of jurisdiction, notification, enforcement and, depending on the circumstances, private international law.
Nonetheless, the signal sent to operators is clear: the absence of an establishment in the Comoros no longer suffices, in itself, to exclude the application of Comorian consumer law when an activity produces effects on the national market.
This extensive conception of the scope of application constitutes the first indication of the change in logic introduced by the reform. Consumer protection is no longer conceived solely on the basis of the physical location of commerce; it seeks to capture the economic relationship itself, including when it is dematerialised or has a foreign element.
It thus paves the way for the recognition of a much more substantial set of individual rights which, in turn, impose new obligations on businesses.
B. The Recognition of Substantive Rights that Directly Transform the Relationship Between Businesses and Consumers
The extension of the scope of application of Law No. 26-003/AU is only the first component of the reform. Its principal contribution lies in the recognition of a set of substantive rights of the consumer which, in practice, give rise to an equivalent set of new obligations for businesses.
Chapter 2 of the Law thus sets out the right to safety, the right to information, the right to choose, the right to education and awareness, the right to be heard, the right to redress and compensation, the right to representation, the right to a wholesome environment, the right to privacy, the right to fair and honest dealings, the right of withdrawal and, finally, the legal guarantee of conformity.
This enumeration might, at first reading, appear largely declaratory. It nonetheless produces very concrete consequences for the way in which businesses will henceforth need to organise their relationships with their customers.
1. Consumer information becomes a genuine legal obligation
Article 5 recognises the consumer's right to "clear, fair, complete and accurate" information relating in particular to the essential characteristics and composition of the goods and services offered.
The information must also enable the consumer to identify the supplier, the producer or the manufacturer who placed the product or service on the market and to specify the legal guarantees and, where applicable, commercial guarantees associated with the product or service.
The Law adds a requirement that is particularly important in the Comorian context: this information must be communicated in clear, legible and comprehensible language, in one of the official languages of the Union of the Comoros, in order to enable the consumer to make an informed choice.
For businesses, this provision goes beyond a mere display obligation.
It calls for a review of all documentation intended for consumers: general terms and conditions of sale, subscription forms, notices, labelling, warranty documents, digital interfaces and, more generally, any medium on which the customer's consent depends.
The quality of the information provided thus becomes an element of the conformity of the commercial relationship itself.
This development is all the more significant given that the right to information is not limited to the moment of contract formation. The consumer may also approach the supplier, the producer or the manufacturer in order to obtain additional information, notably in the event of a dispute.
2. The Law establishes a genuine right to redress
The Law does not merely organise the provision of prior information to the consumer. It also recognises the consumer's right to fair compensation when damage results in particular from false information or a false declaration, a defective product or service, an unfair commercial practice or the use of the consumer's data and information without consent.
The Law specifies, however, that the consumer must bear the burden of proving the damage caused by the dangerous product or the defective service.
When this proof is established, the supplier, the producer and/or the manufacturer is required to fully compensate the damage suffered by the consumer.
This interplay is important.
The Law does not establish, in these provisions, a general mechanism of automatic compensation. The consumer must still establish the existence of the damage and its connection to the product or service in question. But once these elements are established, the Law affirms the principle of full compensation.
The regime is supplemented later by Article 37, which deals specifically with liability related to defective products and deficient services.
When an unfit or defective good is supplied to the consumer, the Law provides in particular for its reimbursement or, where possible and where the consumer so wishes, its replacement. For services, the supplier may be required to refund the price paid or to re-perform the service according to reasonable standards and without additional charge. The Law also provides for the compensation of losses or damage resulting from unfit or defective products, goods or services.
The reform thus progressively introduces a logic that goes beyond mere tort liability: reimbursement, replacement, re-performance and compensation become instruments expressly integrated into consumer law.
3. The two-year legal guarantee of conformity is one of the reform's most operational innovations
Among the provisions likely to have the most immediate impact on businesses is the legal guarantee of conformity.
Article 15 provides that the supplier and/or seller must deliver a good conforming to the contract and is liable for conformity defects existing at the time of delivery as well as those resulting from packaging. The duration provided by the Law is two years.
This rule is complemented by Article 21, according to which any durable good or service must be accompanied by a two-year warranty covering manufacturing defects or hidden defects.
Above all, the legislature specifies that any clause excluding warranty is null and void.
This latter provision directly modifies the supplier's freedom of contract.
It will therefore no longer suffice to insert a warranty exclusion in general terms and conditions to neutralise the protections provided by the Law. When a mandatory provision imposes the warranty, a contrary contractual stipulation may be deprived of effect.
For distributors, importers, manufacturers and retailers, the issue also has an operational dimension. A two-year warranty requires in practice the ability to identify the products sold, to retain certain information relating to transactions, to organise the processing of complaints and to determine the conditions under which replacement, repair or reimbursement are to take place.
Consumer law here directly engages the internal procedures of the business.
4. The right of withdrawal introduces a new constraint for distance-selling models
The Law also establishes a right of withdrawal of a minimum duration of fourteen days for contracts concluded at a distance and away from business premises, subject in particular to the exceptions provided for perishable and customised products.
The practical importance of this rule appears even more clearly in Article 24.
Before the conclusion of a distance contract, the supplier must in particular communicate the main characteristics of the good or service, certain identifying details of the supplier or intermediary, the additional communication or delivery costs, the conditions and modalities for exercising the right of withdrawal, any return costs as well as the existence of warranties and after-sales services.
The supplier must furthermore enable the consumer to accept or refuse the conclusion of the contract or to correct errors.
The consequence extends well beyond e-commerce sites alone.
Depending on the specific circumstances of the transaction, services subscribed online, sales made by messaging or digital platform, certain distance financial services and, more generally, commercial models in which the supplier and the consumer are not physically present in the same place at the time of contract formation may be affected.
For these operators, conformity therefore no longer depends solely on the content of the product or service: the contracting process itself becomes subject to legal requirements.
5. Privacy protection expressly enters the field of consumer law
The Law finally has a digital dimension that warrants particular attention.
Its Article 12 recognises every consumer's right to the protection of their privacy and to the confidentiality of their personal data during the purchase and use of goods and services. Article 9 also includes among the situations that may give rise to redress the use of the consumer's data and information without consent.
The Law on Consumer Protection thus becomes one of the instruments to be considered in the analysis of data processing related to a commercial relationship.
It should nevertheless not be given a scope it does not have: the Law does not constitute, in itself, a general and detailed regime of personal data protection comparable to legislation specifically devoted to this matter.
Its contribution is different.
It elevates the protection of privacy and the confidentiality of data to the status of a consumer right and expressly connects the non-consensual use of the consumer's information to the redress mechanism provided by the Law.
For banks, telecommunications operators, digital platforms, payment service providers and other businesses exploiting data in the context of B2C relationships, this provision therefore creates an additional area of vigilance. It moreover echoes issues that we have already identified in the IAA analysis of cross-border digital financial services, where consumer protection and personal data form part of the regulations that may be superimposed on the sectoral regime.
Taken together, these new rights reflect a change in perspective.
The consumer relationship is no longer addressed solely at the moment when damage occurs. It is now subject to legal requirements before the conclusion of the contract, during its performance and, in certain cases, after delivery of the good or performance of the service.
It is precisely this continuity that transforms the rights recognised for the consumer into compliance obligations for the business.
C. The Integration of E-Commerce and Distance Contracts into Consumer Law
One of the most contemporary features of Law No. 26-003/AU lies in the place it gives to transactions concluded without the simultaneous physical presence of the parties.
The Law expressly defines the electronic agreement as a consumer contract concluded by means of textual communications over the Internet, while the distance contract refers to one concluded when the consumer and the supplier are not located in the same place.
The notion of distance selling is even more precise: it covers the sale of a product or the provision of a service concluded without the simultaneous physical presence of the parties when the supplier and the consumer primarily use one or more distance communication techniques to negotiate and conclude the contract.
These definitions enable the legislation to go beyond the traditional model of physical commerce.
A consumer contract therefore does not escape the protective requirements of the Law merely because it is concluded by means of a website, an application or another distance communication tool.
The legislature's choice is consistent with the general scope of application of the Law, which expressly targets transactions carried out by electronic means.
But the reform goes further by organising a genuine pre-contractual regime for distance selling.
Article 24 requires the supplier to communicate to the consumer, before the conclusion of the contract, a series of information relating in particular to the characteristics of the good or service, the identity or relevant address of the supplier, the additional costs, the right of withdrawal, the return costs, the warranties as well as the functionalities of the digital content and any technical protection measures.
The express inclusion of digital content is significant.
It shows that the legislature did not contemplate only the distance selling of physical goods. Certain dematerialised products and services also fall within the scope of the Law.
Article 36 moreover goes so far as to prohibit, in the context of commercial activities, the supply of digital content likely to have harmful effects on the health or safety of the consumer.
The Law thus opens a new area of regulation whose importance is likely to grow with the digitalisation of the Comorian economy.
For businesses, the issue is very concrete: digital interfaces, subscription mechanisms, electronic general terms and conditions and withdrawal procedures no longer constitute mere commercial or technical choices. They may now become subject to legal control.
This development may also affect foreign businesses accessible from Comorian territory. As indicated above, Article 2 adopts a criterion based on the effects produced on the market, even when the operator does not have a registered office or establishment in the Comoros.
The combination of these two rules — territorial extension based on effects and the regulation of electronic transactions — could therefore confer on the new consumer law a significant cross-border reach.
It will nevertheless be necessary to assess its application on a case-by-case basis, notably when the supplier is established abroad and has no local presence. Questions of applicable law, jurisdiction and enforcement remain distinct from the determination of the material scope of the Law.
The reform nonetheless sets a clear orientation: the dematerialisation of the commercial relationship must not lead to the dematerialisation of the legal protection of the consumer.
This first part thus makes it possible to assess the scale of the change introduced by Law No. 26-003/AU. But the recognition of consumer rights is only one side of the framework.
The second, probably the most important for businesses, lies in the transformation of these rights into positive compliance obligations applicable to products, contracts and commercial practices.
II. The Transformation of Corporate Compliance Obligations
A. Compliance, Traceability, Labelling and Warranties: New Operational Obligations
Law No. 26-003/AU does not merely recognise rights for the consumer. It translates these rights into positive obligations imposed directly on businesses, some of which are likely to affect the day-to-day organisation of their activities.
In this respect, Articles 19 to 21 constitute the core of the compliance framework applicable to goods and services.
1. A general compliance obligation for products and services placed on the market
Article 19 lays down a general principle: any product or service placed on the market must meet the recognised national and/or international standards in matters of quality, safety and hygiene. The supplier is required to verify that the product or service marketed complies with the requirements in force.
This provision is important in two respects.
First, it does not target only the manufacturer. The supplier itself is subject to an obligation to verify the conformity of the good or service that it makes available to the consumer.
The distributor or the importer will therefore not necessarily be able to consider that conformity issues fall exclusively within the purview of the manufacturer located upstream in the chain.
Second, Article 19 specifies that verification of conformity at importation and at production is carried out in accordance with the legislative and regulatory provisions applicable in the Comoros.
This interplay is particularly important for importing businesses.
Consumer protection is here superimposed on the sectoral regulations applicable to the products concerned: sanitary standards, import rules, technical requirements, standardisation requirements or, depending on the nature of the product, specific regulations.
The conformity of the product thus becomes an issue that must be considered before it is placed on the market, and not only after the occurrence of an incident.
This logic is confirmed by the safety mechanism provided in Articles 34 et seq. The competent authority may in particular require the withdrawal from the market of products that are harmful to the consumer, that do not comply with recognised safety standards or for which the supplier has not taken sufficient measures to prevent the risk.
The Law also recognises the mechanism of voluntary recall, notably when a non-conformity, a defect or a dangerous characteristic is detected.
The legal risk therefore no longer extends only to a possible claim for compensation after the sale. It may lead to the withdrawal or recall of the product itself, with the commercial and reputational consequences that such measures may entail.
2. Labelling and traceability become statutory consumer protection obligations
Article 20 takes a further step by establishing a specific obligation of labelling and traceability.
Products must bear clear, precise and legible labelling indicating at a minimum their name and composition, their country of origin, the identity of the manufacturer or importer and its contact details, the dates of manufacture and expiry as well as instructions for use and storage.
This provision is of particular importance in an economy where a substantial share of consumer goods is imported.
It means that conformity must not be assessed solely by reference to the intrinsic quality of the product. The manner in which the product is presented and documented on the Comorian market itself forms part of its conformity.
For importers and distributors, this implies in particular verifying, before marketing, that the mandatory information actually appears on the products concerned and that it satisfies the legibility and precision requirements laid down by the Law.
The express reference to traceability also warrants attention.
Even if Article 20 does not in itself define an exhaustive traceability system, its combination with the provisions relating to withdrawal, recall and the liability of the various participants in the distribution chain leads to a clear practical consequence: it is in the interest of businesses to be able to identify the origin of the products they market and to trace their circulation.
This requirement becomes particularly important when the product presents a defect or a safety risk.
Article 37 illustrates this logic directly. Where the producer, the importer or the supplier cannot be identified, each distributor is considered liable.
Traceability thus constitutes not only an obligation to inform the consumer, but also an instrument for managing legal risk within the distribution chain.
For businesses, the practical consequence is significant: the retention of import documents, supplier invoices, batch references, information relating to manufacturers and other elements enabling the identification of the provenance of a product may become an essential component of internal compliance policies.
3. The two-year warranty requires businesses to adapt their commercial practices
Article 21 provides that any durable good or service must be accompanied by a two-year warranty covering manufacturing defects or hidden defects and declares null and void any clause excluding warranty.
This obligation should be read together with the legal guarantee of conformity provided in Article 15, also set at two years.
Beyond certain questions as to the interplay between the formulations adopted by these two provisions, the principle intended by the legislature is clear: the legal guarantee cannot be neutralised by the contractual conditions of the supplier.
For businesses marketing durable goods, this reform should lead to a revision of general terms and conditions of sale, order forms, invoices, warranty certificates and after-sales service policies.
It also calls for consideration of the contractual relationships situated upstream.
A distributor that must warrant a product for two years to its end customer will need to ensure that its contracts with the manufacturer, the importer or the supplier enable it in turn to seek recourse when the defect originates in the manufacture of the product.
Consumer protection may thus have a cascading effect on the entire contractual chain, well beyond the B2C contract alone.
4. After-sales service acquires a new legal dimension
The Law expressly defines after-sales service as the set of services that the supplier undertakes to provide, free of charge or for a fee, notably in respect of technical assistance, delivery, maintenance, installation, assembly, testing or repair.
It specifies above all that after-sales service is distinct from the legal guarantee of conformity and from conventional or commercial warranties.
This distinction is important.
A business may therefore not present an additional commercial service as a substitute for the legal protections available to the consumer.
A commercial warranty may complement the statutory regime; it may not, in principle, cause it to disappear.
Distance selling further reinforces this requirement since the supplier must inform the consumer of the existence of the legal warranty, after-sales assistance, after-sales service and any commercial warranties as well as their conditions.
The reform thus tends to turn what was sometimes essentially a commercial policy matter for the business into a genuine process of post-contractual conformity.
5. Towards "product compliance" for businesses operating in the Comoros?
Taken together, these mechanisms outline a deeper shift.
The business must no longer merely ensure that it has the legal right to market a product. It must be able to verify its conformity, identify its origin, correctly inform the consumer, ensure the applicable warranty and, when a risk emerges, participate in its withdrawal or recall.
In other words, conformity must be capable of being monitored throughout the commercial lifecycle of the product.
For the most exposed businesses — importers, distributors, large retailers, telecommunications operators, financial institutions, digital platforms or suppliers of durable goods — this shift could justify the establishment of specific internal procedures: documentary checks prior to marketing, retention of traceability information, organised processing of complaints, monitoring of warranties and withdrawal or recall procedures.
The Law does not formally prescribe the creation of a "compliance programme" under that name. This is therefore an organisational consequence that may be inferred from the various obligations imposed on businesses, and not an autonomous obligation expressly formulated by the legislature.
But this reading becomes clear when the framework is examined as a whole.
The Law indeed associates these material obligations with powers of inspection, investigation, product withdrawal and sanction. Article 40 in particular charges the new National Authority with monitoring the conformity of goods and services and carrying out inspections on the market.
Consequently, for the business, being compliant no longer means merely complying with the rule: it becomes necessary to be able to demonstrate this conformity when subject to regulatory scrutiny.
This transformation is even more visible when one moves from the intrinsic conformity of the product to the manner in which the product is promoted, sold and invoiced to the consumer.
B. Advertising, Commercial Practices and Sales: Stronger Regulation of the Commercial Relationship
Law No. 26-003/AU regulates in considerable detail the practices used by businesses to attract the consumer, present their offers and conclude their sales.
It thus establishes a genuine standard of commercial fairness, applicable from advertising through to invoicing.
1. Advertising must now satisfy a general requirement of fairness and verifiability
Article 22 provides that all advertising must be fair, verifiable and not misleading.
The Law treats as commercial information the advertising of prices, display, labelling, general terms and conditions of sale as well as any other appropriate means. It expressly prohibits misleading or deceptive advertising, or advertising likely to mislead the consumer.
The mechanism is specified in Article 27.
False or misleading statements include in particular attributing to a product certain characteristics of standard, quantity, quality, value, category, composition, style or model that it does not possess; falsely presenting certain qualities of a service; alleging approvals or performances that do not exist; or presenting the price of a good or a service in a misleading manner.
The rule may directly affect marketing practices.
Claims relating to the quality, performance, origin, price or approval of a product must now be capable of objective justification.
This requirement should be taken into account not only for traditional advertising campaigns, but also for digital commercial communications insofar as they fall within the scope of the Law.
2. The legislature does not only address misleading practices: it also targets pressure exerted on consumers
Article 28 introduces the notion of "unreasonable conduct" in commercial transactions.
These include in particular cases in which the consumer is subjected to conditions that are not reasonably necessary for the protection of the legitimate interests of the supplier, as well as those in which undue pressure or unfair, abusive, exploitative or deceptive means are used against the consumer.
Article 30 complements this mechanism with the prohibition of undue influence.
Any commitment obtained by abusing the weakness or ignorance of the consumer is deemed null and void. The Law targets in particular situations in which the consumer was not in a position to appreciate the scope of the commitment or was subjected to constraint, unjustified influence or threat.
Commercial conformity therefore no longer depends solely on the accuracy of the information provided.
The circumstances in which the consumer's consent is obtained themselves become subject to scrutiny.
3. Certain sales techniques are now expressly prohibited
Article 31 prohibits several practices related to selling and the provision of services.
These include in particular the refusal to sell to a consumer under normal market conditions, except for a legitimate reason, as well as certain forms of tied or conditional sales: imposing the purchase of a determined quantity or of another product in order to obtain a good, or conditioning a service on the subscription to another service or the purchase of a good.
Article 32 also prohibits suppliers and producers from applying discriminatory conditions in the sale of products, goods or services.
These provisions may have significant implications for certain bundled offers, distribution policies or conditions of access to services.
They will, however, need to be interpreted in light of their exact formulation and, where applicable, of the implementing texts or the future practice of the competent authorities.
4. Sales promotions are now subject to a specific legal framework
The legislature also regulates sales promotions.
Article 25 provides in particular that the goods or services concerned must have been acquired by the supplier before the start of the operation and requires the display of the promotional period, the products concerned, the previous prices and the reductions granted.
Promotional products must furthermore be presented separately in order to avoid any confusion with those sold at the normal price, and the reduction must appear in a legible and unambiguous manner.
The use of a price reduction thus also becomes a legally regulated practice.
5. Invoicing becomes part of the consumer protection framework
Finally, Article 26 requires the supplier to issue an invoice, receipt or till slip in accordance with the legislation and regulations in force.
The document must be issued as soon as the sale or the service becomes final, while the consumer is in turn required to request it.
The importance of this provision should not be underestimated.
The invoice or till slip naturally constitutes a commercial and, where applicable, fiscal obligation. But within the framework of the new Law, it also becomes an instrument of evidence of the consumer relationship, likely to facilitate the subsequent exercise of the rights to warranty, refund or repair.
Thus, from the first advertising communication through to the issuance of the invoice, Law No. 26-003/AU now regulates practically the entire commercial process.
The change is significant: the conformity of the business is no longer assessed solely through what it sells, but also through the manner in which it presents, offers and sells it.
This logic reaches its clearest legal expression, however, when the Law intervenes directly in the content of the contract concluded between the business and the consumer.
C. Unfair Contract Terms and Consumer Contracts: Towards Greater Scrutiny of Contractual Fairness
Article 29 constitutes, in this respect, one of the most important provisions of the reform.
It defines as unfair any term that has the object or effect of creating, to the detriment of the consumer, a significant imbalance between the rights and obligations of the contracting parties.
The Law does not stop at this general definition.
It identifies several categories of terms that may be considered unfair: excessive guarantee deposits; the power conferred on the supplier to modify or terminate the contract unilaterally without reasonable cause and without notice; assignment of the contract to the detriment of the consumer without their consent; unilateral modification of the characteristics of the good or service; unreasonable fees or obligations; limitation of certain statutory liabilities of the supplier; or requiring the consumer to waive the right to bring legal proceedings.
The potential impact on the contractual practices of businesses is considerable.
Standard-form contracts, general terms and conditions of sale, subscription contracts, application forms and other standardised documents intended for consumers will now need to be examined not only from the perspective of their formal validity, but also from that of the balance of the rights and obligations they organise.
Two rules particularly reinforce this scrutiny.
First, contracts offered to consumers must be drafted in a clear and comprehensible manner and, in case of doubt, interpreted in the manner most favourable to the consumer.
Second — and this is probably one of the strongest procedural innovations of the Law — the burden of proving that the term is not abusive falls on the supplier of goods or services.
The supplier is therefore no longer merely faced with the risk that a term may be challenged. Under the conditions provided by the Law, it may fall to the supplier to justify its non-abusive nature.
This rule considerably reinforces the case for a preventive audit of B2C contracts.
It is all the more important given that consumer associations themselves have standing to act against certain contractual stipulations. The Law allows them in particular to refer the matter to the National Competition Commission or to the civil courts in order to seek the cessation of unlawful conduct or the removal of unfair terms from contracts offered to consumers.
The potential litigation therefore does not necessarily relate only to the individual action of a consumer after damage has occurred.
The scrutiny may also extend to the contractual model itself.
It is probably here that one of the most profound transformations of the Law appears.
In many sectors — telecommunications, banking, insurance, digital services, distribution, transport or the provision of recurring services — relationships with individuals rely largely on standardised contracts unilaterally drafted by the business.
Law No. 26-003/AU now requires an examination of the justification of each stipulation creating a particular advantage in favour of the supplier: power of unilateral modification, fees, penalties, deposits, termination, limitation of liability or dispute resolution mechanisms.
For businesses operating in the Comoros, the reform therefore calls for a very concrete approach: identify contracts concluded with consumers, review the general terms used, remove or rebalance terms presenting a risk and document the justification of those that are maintained.
Consumer law thus directly intersects with the contractual governance of the business.
But the effectiveness of such a framework necessarily depends on the capacity of the institutions to oversee and enforce it.
Yet in this respect too, Law No. 26-003/AU introduces a significant development: it does not merely grant remedies to consumers, but puts in place an administrative architecture for market surveillance, vested with powers of investigation, seizure and sanction.
III. A Supervisory and Sanctions Framework that Makes Consumer Protection a New Corporate Compliance Issue
A. The Establishment of a National Consumer Protection Authority with Extensive Powers
The scope of Law No. 26-003/AU cannot be assessed solely through the new rights recognised for consumers and the obligations imposed on suppliers. The legislature has also created a specific institutional architecture charged with ensuring the effectiveness of these rules.
Article 40 thus establishes a National Consumer Protection Authority, placed under the supervision of the ministry responsible for Trade.
Its missions are particularly broad.
The Authority is in particular charged with monitoring the conformity of goods and services, initiating investigations into infringements committed on the national market on its own motion, investigating consumer complaints, conducting investigations, carrying out inspections on the market and detecting and recording infringements.
It may also order the cessation or prohibition of unfair practices and impose sanctions in the event of an infringement or non-compliance with a decision, an order, a provisional measure or an undertaking given by a supplier.
The new Authority is therefore not conceived as a merely consultative or awareness-raising body.
It is called upon to exercise a market surveillance function, with prerogatives that operate both upstream — monitoring and inspection — and downstream — recording of infringements, corrective measures and sanctions.
This power to act on its own motion is particularly noteworthy. The monitoring of a business's conformity does not necessarily depend on the prior existence of an individual complaint from a consumer. The Authority may, under the conditions that will be specified by its regulatory framework, open an investigation on its own initiative into practices observed on the market.
The framework is complemented by powers intended to ensure direct redress for the consumer.
Article 40 thus mentions several mechanisms: repair, replacement, refund of the price paid and termination of the contract.
This combination of market surveillance, investigative power, sanctions and redress constitutes one of the most significant structural aspects of the reform.
It means, for businesses, that compliance with consumer law will no longer need to be considered solely through the risk of judicial litigation initiated by a customer. An autonomous regulatory risk arises alongside the litigation risk.
This development must, however, be considered alongside the existence of institutions already competent in related fields.
Article 42 expressly organises the cooperation of the new Authority with the National Competition Commission, INRAPE, Customs, the Comorian Office for Standardisation and Metrology, the health and safety services, the Directorate of Internal Trade as well as other institutions concerned. This cooperation must in particular cover the application of the Law, investigations, the coordination of activities, research, the exchange of information and technical assistance.
The choice is revealing.
Consumer law is conceived as a cross-cutting matter, likely to interact with competition law, customs rules, standardisation, public health and sectoral regulations.
For economic operators, this means that the same conduct could now be examined from several regulatory angles.
A labelling issue may, for example, fall within consumer protection while raising standardisation or sanitary safety questions. A commercial practice may simultaneously engage consumer law and competition law. The marketing of a non-conforming imported product may, for its part, engage several administrations.
The question of institutional coordination will therefore be decisive in the practical implementation of the reform.
It is all the more so given that the Law itself introduces, alongside the new Authority, the National Competition Commission.
Consumer associations may in particular refer the matter to the latter or to the civil courts in order to seek the cessation of unlawful conduct or the removal of unfair terms from contracts offered to consumers.
And, as we shall see, Article 43 also gives the National Competition Commission the power to impose certain administrative sanctions.
There therefore exists, in the Law itself, multiple authorities called upon to intervene in the application of the new consumer law.
This architecture does not necessarily constitute a difficulty in itself. It does, however, require that the respective competences, procedures and coordination mechanisms be sufficiently specified to ensure sufficient legal certainty and predictability for both consumers and businesses.
Yet this question refers directly to the implementing texts.
Article 41 indeed provides that a regulatory text will define the modalities of composition and functioning of the National Consumer Protection Authority.
The institution is therefore created by the Law, but an essential part of its operational architecture remains to be specified by regulation.
This distinction will be fundamental for assessing the immediate effectiveness of the reform.
B. Investigations, Seizures, Product Withdrawals and Sanctions: A New Regulatory Risk for Economic Operators
The effectiveness of the new framework also relies on the existence of means of control and constraint.
The Law organises, for this purpose, a procedure for recording infringements.
Article 38 provides that visits, investigations or seizures must be the subject of a detailed official record or report. The latter must in particular record the nature, date and place of the findings or controls, the identity of the recording officers as well as the goods or services concerned by the infringement. The Law also provides for the information of the alleged offender and their invitation to participate in certain stages of the procedure.
These requirements are important because they place the powers of control within a procedural framework.
The Law then provides for the possibility of carrying out seizures.
Products that have been the subject of an infringement, as well as the instruments that served or were intended to commit it, may be seized. The listing and value of the seized products must appear in the official record. The procedures for the settlement of seizures are referred to a ministerial order.
In addition to these measures, the Law provides for the mechanism of product withdrawal.
Article 34 allows the competent authority to require withdrawal from the market when a product causes harm to the consumer, does not meet recognised safety standards or when the supplier has not taken sufficient measures to prevent it from causing harm. The authority must then inform the public of the nature of the defect or danger and of the circumstances in which the use of the product presents a risk.
The Law also recognises the possibility of a voluntary recall in the event of non-conformity, defect or safety risk.
The framework therefore allows for a graduated response: voluntary correction by the business, market withdrawal, seizure and, where applicable, sanction.
Sanctions capable of directly affecting business operations
Chapter 6 organises sanctions and avenues of appeal.
Article 43 provides that in the event of a breach of the obligations imposed on businesses by the Law, the National Competition Commission may in particular issue a warning or a formal notice, a provisional measure, the withdrawal of a product or service from the market, the suspension or withdrawal of an administrative document as well as fines or any other sanction provided by the Law.
The potential scope of certain of these measures is considerable.
The risk is not limited to the payment of a financial sanction. The withdrawal of a product, the suspension of an administrative document or a provisional measure may directly affect the continuity of an economic activity.
Article 44 furthermore introduces a particularly important element in terms of financial risk: fines may be determined according to the gravity of the offence and take the form of a capped percentage of the turnover of the offender.
The Law, however, does not specify in this article the corresponding rates or caps.
It would therefore be premature to infer the maximum amount of a business's financial exposure. This point will need to be assessed in light of the implementing regulations or any other provision to which the framework may refer.
This reservation is important: the principle of a sanction proportional to turnover is laid down, but its concrete calibration does not appear in the Law itself.
For businesses, the change in logic nonetheless remains significant.
A violation of consumer law may now simultaneously generate several categories of risk: obligation to refund or compensate the consumer, product withdrawal, seizure, administrative sanction and reputational damage resulting in particular from public notification of the existence of a dangerous product.
The cost of non-conformity may therefore far exceed the amount of the individual transaction at the origin of the problem.
Obligations to cooperate with supervisory authorities
The Law further reinforces this risk by sanctioning certain conduct likely to obstruct an investigation.
Article 33 treats in particular as infringements the refusal to communicate documents, their concealment, the refusal to respond to a summons or the failure, within the prescribed time limit, to respond to a request for information or for the communication of documents made by the officers acting in the context of an investigation.
For the business, conformity therefore also includes a procedural dimension.
It is not sufficient to comply with the substantive obligations of the Law. When a control takes place, the business must be able to retrieve, retain and communicate the information necessary to demonstrate this conformity.
It is precisely this that gives the reform its compliance dimension.
Contracts, invoices, documents relating to the origin of products, labelling information, evidence supporting advertising claims, warranty procedures and traceability elements are no longer merely operational documents. They may become items of evidence in the context of an administrative investigation or litigation.
The Law certainly does not expressly require each business to create an internal "consumer compliance" function. But the combination of its substantive obligations, its control mechanisms and its sanctions regime makes a preventive approach particularly relevant.
This observation nonetheless leads to one final essential question: to what extent is the entirety of this framework immediately operational?
The answer calls for greater nuance.
C. Effectiveness Will Depend on Implementing Regulations and the Coordination of the Competent Authorities
The ambition of Law No. 26-003/AU is manifest. Its practical effectiveness will, however, depend on the establishment of several regulatory and institutional instruments that the legislature has not entirely defined in the Law itself.
Several provisions expressly refer to subsequent measures.
Article 2 already provides that an order of the minister responsible for Trade must specify the modalities applicable to the mechanisms for the distribution of goods and services.
Article 39 refers to a ministerial order to determine the procedures relating to seizures.
More fundamentally still, Article 41 provides that a regulatory text will determine the composition and functioning of the National Consumer Protection Authority.
Finally, Article 46 provides generally that regulatory texts will specify the modalities of application of the Law.
Two questions must, however, be distinguished.
The first concerns the existence of the obligations laid down directly by the Law.
Certain rules are formulated with sufficient explicitness to constitute, in themselves, standards of conduct: obligation of information, two-year warranty, labelling requirements, prohibition of misleading advertising, regulation of unfair terms or the right of withdrawal.
The second concerns the institutional and procedural modalities of their implementation.
In this respect, the adoption of the regulatory texts will be decisive in specifying the functioning of the new Authority, the inspection procedures, certain seizure mechanisms and, more generally, the operational application of the framework.
It would therefore be excessive to assert that the Law remains devoid of effect until the adoption of all of its implementing texts.
Conversely, it would be equally imprudent to consider that the entire institutional and enforcement architecture is immediately operational in each of its details.
This distinction probably constitutes one of the main challenges of the transition period.
Clarification of the relationship with the National Competition Commission will also be necessary
The Law creates a National Consumer Protection Authority vested with important powers, but simultaneously continues to entrust several competences to the National Competition Commission.
The latter may be referred to by consumer associations, intervene in certain requests for the cessation of practices or the removal of unfair terms and impose the administrative sanctions enumerated in Article 43.
Article 42 certainly expressly provides for cooperation between the two institutions.
But practice will need to clarify the concrete distribution of their interventions: supervisory authority, investigative authority, decision-making power, sanctions and the handling of complaints.
For businesses as for consumers, this clarification will be important in order to identify the competent authority and the applicable procedure for each situation.
The need for businesses to anticipate compliance requirements
The existence of implementing texts yet to come should therefore not lead operators to defer any adaptation.
The Law itself already contains sufficient substantive obligations to justify an initial compliance review.
Businesses operating on the Comorian market may in particular examine their general terms and conditions of sale and B2C contracts, verify their warranty and liability clauses, review the information communicated before the sale, review their labelling and traceability procedures, document the claims used in their advertising and adapt, where relevant, their distance selling and withdrawal mechanisms.
For international groups, an additional question arises: whether their contractual models and compliance procedures developed for other jurisdictions can be used as-is in the Comoros.
The answer cannot be presumed.
Comorian law contains its own definitions, its own institutional mechanisms and certain specific formulations. A local adaptation of documents and procedures may therefore prove necessary, even where a group already has an international consumer protection programme.
The reform thus calls for a two-pronged approach: immediate compliance with the obligations directly laid down by the Law and attentive monitoring of the regulatory texts that will come to specify its application.
Conclusion
With Law No. 26-003/AU of 15 June 2026, consumer protection enters a significantly new phase in the Union of the Comoros.
The Law does not merely recognise a series of individual rights. It progressively builds a genuine legal regime for the relationship between the business and the consumer, from the information preceding the sale through to warranty and redress, encompassing advertising, labelling, traceability, distance contracts and the control of unfair terms.
Its scope of application, which expressly includes electronic transactions and may reach certain operators lacking an establishment in the Comoros when their activities produce effects on the national market, also confers on it a reach that goes beyond traditional physical commerce.
For businesses, the essential consequence is probably elsewhere: consumer protection becomes an internal compliance issue.
Products must be compliant and traceable; the information provided must be clear and verifiable; warranties must be respected; commercial practices must be fair; contracts must be reviewed in light of the control of unfair terms; and the business must be able to produce the necessary documents in the event of an investigation.
The creation of a National Consumer Protection Authority, the existence of inspection and seizure powers, the mechanisms for product withdrawal and the possibility of financial sanctions linked to turnover reinforce this development.
The full effectiveness of the new framework will, however, depend on its implementation.
The composition and functioning of the new Authority remain to be specified by regulation, several procedures require implementing measures and the interplay between the National Authority and the National Competition Commission will need to be tested in practice. The Law itself moreover provides for the adoption of regulatory texts intended to specify its modalities of application.
The reform thus opens a new stage: after the adoption of the legislative framework, the challenge will now be to transform the rights enshrined by the Law into genuinely operational protection mechanisms, while giving businesses the legal certainty necessary to adapt their practices.
For economic operators, the message is nevertheless already clear: compliance with consumer law must now be integrated into the management of legal risk in the Comoros.
Source: Law No. 26-003/AU of 15 June 2026 on Consumer Protection in the Union of the Comoros.