§ 50. Complaints board (tvistenemnd) for travel: approval and fee
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
In brief
- A tribunal (nemnd) for travel disputes must apply for approval under the Consumer Dispute Bodies Approval Act (godkjenningsloven).
- Businesses that provide a travel guarantee (reisegaranti) for package holidays (pakkereiser) must take part in the tribunal and pay a fee (gebyr).
- The Norwegian Travel Guarantee Fund (Reisegarantifondet) collects the fee.
- The Ministry (departementet) can make regulations (forskrift) on the fee, payment for handling cases and legal costs (sakskostnader).
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
§ 50. Approval of tribunal and duty to take part in the tribunal
What does this mean?
This section is about resolving disputes outside the courts. If there is a tribunal that the travel industry and the consumer organisations have set up by agreement, and that handles disputes covered by the Act, the tribunal must apply for official approval under the Consumer Dispute Bodies Approval Act. The Act does not itself set up any tribunal. It assumes that the industry and the organisations for travellers have first agreed on one.
The duty to take part and pay applies to anyone who provides a travel guarantee for package holidays. Such businesses must be part of the tribunal and pay a fee towards running it. The Norwegian Travel Guarantee Fund collects the fee, and the Ministry can make further rules about it in regulations. The Fund is therefore both the guarantee administrator and the fee collector for the tribunal.
The third paragraph gives the Ministry the power to decide in regulations whether the parties must pay for the handling of the case in the tribunal, and how much. The Ministry can also decide to what extent the losing party can be ordered to cover the opposing party's legal costs (the expenses of bringing the case). The Act itself does not set any rates. Such rules can be made without changing the Act.
This section belongs to Chapter 10 together with the public enforcement tools. Checking that the Act is followed is the job of the Norwegian Consumer Authority (Forbrukertilsynet) and the Market Council (Markedsrådet), but this does not cover Chapter 8 on travel guarantees (§ 51). An administrative fine (overtredelsesgebyr) can be imposed for serious or repeated breaches of certain information rules (§ 52). Punishment by fines (bøter) or imprisonment (fengsel) for up to three months applies to breaches of Chapter 8 (§ 53). The section is therefore part of a system with both dispute resolution and public supervision.
Example: An organiser (arrangør) that has provided a guarantee (garanti) for package holidays must take part in the tribunal and pay the fee that the Fund collects.