The Digital Content and Digital Services Contracts Regulations, 2021, have been published by means of Legal Notice 406 of 2021 on the 29 October 2021, and shall come into force on 1 January 2022.

The purpose of these Regulations is to transpose Directive (EU) 2019/770 of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services. These regulations, lay down common rules on certain requirements concerning contracts between traders and consumers for the supply of digital content or digital service, in particular, rules on:

(i)   the conformity of digital content or a digital service with the contract;

(ii)  remedies in the event of a lack of such conformity or a failure to supply, and the modalities for the exercise of those remedies, and

(iii) the modification of digital content or a digital service.

These Regulations will apply to any contract where the consumer pays or undertakes to pay a price; or when the consumer provides personal data in exchange for a service that is provided without payment. With these new rules, consumers will be protected when digital content and digital services result faulty; a protection which currently only exists for tangible goods as per the current Sale of Goods Directive.  

For ease of reference, the User Guidelines to these Regulations are being provided. 

The Maltese version of this document can also be accessed as follows: Linji ta’ Gwida għall-Utent.