The Legal Approaches on Regulating Unfair Contract Terms in Malaysia and Australia

Abstract

In this global economy, the improvement in the daily technologies and the liberalization of trade has now given impact to nowadays contract which will affect the consumer protection system of every jurisdiction. To keep the consumer protection remain alive, they have to manage a certain law to keep the consumer against the unfair term in a certain contract in order to help the consumer from being biased in a contract. The unfair term significantly gave certain advantages against the consumer. In order to prevent this kind of thing happening, the consumer contract law has been enacted to give the right to the consumer and balance their inequalities in bargaining power. This article intends to explore more about the judicial and legislative interference on the unfair terms in consumer contracts in Malaysia and Australia. This article also aiming on comparing the Malaysian Consumer Protection Act 1999 with the Australian legal framework. The analysis shows that unfair terms have been treated as a polemic that requires the paternalistic intervention of government through specific legislation. This research therefore suggests the specific legislation in Malaysia as a measure to minimise the oppression and injustice in consumer contracts. By adopting the content analysis method, this paper aims at exploring the legal control of unfair terms and exclusion of liability in ‘business to consumer’ (B2C) contracts in Malaysia and Australia.