The New Path of Consumer Public Interest Litigation Compensation

Recently, a consumer civil public interest lawsuit supported by the Fifth Branch of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate was successfully completed. In this case, Li took advantage of the weak ability of rural consumers to identify counterfeit goods and sold counterfeit products to many unspecified consumers in the rural market, which violated consumers' right to know and choose, and harmed the public interest. After trial by the court, the consumer civil public interest litigation was closed by mediation, and the defendant will make a public apology for his illegal acts in the China Consumer Daily, and will have to purchase a total of more than 1.48 million yuan of Hui agricultural products produced in the area involved within three years.
In the past, public interest litigation cases mostly compensated specific consumers whose interests were damaged in the form of fines, or used as a whole to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. However, the relevant legal provisions of the punitive damages system in our country are not perfect at this stage, which leads to the difficulties in the exploration and practice. The problems are mainly reflected in two aspects: first, how to calculate the punitive damages? Second, how to manage and use the punitive damages?

The case is a bold innovation and beneficial attempt of consumer organizations in the field of consumer civil public interest litigation, and is a unique sample of judicial practice. "allowing infringers to buy agricultural products can support the local agricultural industry to a certain extent, benefit unspecified rural consumers, and make up for the damage to the public interest." Wang Qiyong, director of the fourth procuratorial department of the Fifth Branch of Chongqing, explained that allowing the defendant to change his identity and experience the simple desire of consumers to buy genuine goods at a reasonable price can have multiple effects such as public welfare protection and educational warning.
Consumer public interest litigation refers to the illegal or unreasonable business behavior of commodity producers and service operators, which infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of many consumers or threatens to infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of many consumers, so that the normal commercial order of the whole society and the public interests of consumers are subject to or threatened, the system in which state organs, relevant consumer organizations or individual consumers bring lawsuits to the courts in order to safeguard the public interests of consumers.

Consumer public interest litigation belongs to the category of civil public interest litigation. Because the current laws and judicial interpretations of our country are not clear enough about the requirements for punitive damages in civil public interest litigation, whether civil public interest litigation in the field of intellectual property rights can bring punitive damages There is still a certain controversy, but it also leaves room for judicial practice to explore. "The Consumer Committee of the Procuratorate collaborates to innovate the way of'buy' and 'compensate'. This is a useful attempt by both parties to implement the rural revitalization strategy and participate in consumer assistance." Gu Dan, secretary general of Chongqing Consumer Council, said. "in the next step, we will rely on the cooperation mechanism of the Consumer Council of the Procuratorate to explore litigation requests to make up for the loss of public interests with actions, so as to better safeguard social and public interests." Peng Jinrong, director of the five procuratorial departments of the Chongqing Municipal Procuratorate, said.