Act on accessibility requirements of certain products and services, duties of distributors of computers, payment and ticketing terminals, ATMs, consumer terminal equipment and e-readers

Act 424/2023 transposes Directive (EU) 2019/882. Section 2(1) of the Act applies it to general-purpose consumer computer hardware systems and their operating systems, self-service payment terminals, ATMs, ticket-issuing machines, check-in machines and information terminals used to provide services, consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability used for electronic communications services or for access to audiovisual media services, and e-readers.

Section 4(1) sets the accessibility requirements of the products as those in sections I and II of Annex 1. Article 10(1) of the Directive requires distributors making a product available on the market to act with due care in relation to the requirements of the Directive. Section 8(1) of the Act requires a distributor to act with due care so that the products it supplies meet the accessibility requirements, and to ensure that storage and transport conditions do not endanger that compliance.

Section 8(2) requires the distributor, before supplying a product to the market, to verify that it bears the CE marking, that the instructions and safety information accompany it, and that the manufacturer and importer met their identification duties. Section 8(3) requires a distributor that finds before supply that a product does not meet the requirements to inform the manufacturer or importer and the authority without delay.

Section 8(4) requires a distributor that finds a product it supplied does not meet the requirements to correct it or withdraw it without undue delay and to inform the authority of the non-compliance, its nature and causes, and the measures taken. Article 11 of the Directive treats an importer or distributor as a manufacturer where it places a product on the market under its own name or trademark or modifies a product in a way that may affect compliance.

Section 9 of the Act treats an importer or distributor as a manufacturer on the same two grounds. Section 10 requires distributors to identify on the authority's request each operator that supplied them or that they supplied, for 5 years. Section 15(3) requires a distributor that supplied a product to keep the assessment and its supporting documents for 5 years from the day it last supplied the product, and exempts a microenterprise distributor from submitting the assessment to the authority.

Section 15(5) requires the manufacturer, authorised representative, importer or distributor to inform the supervisory authority before supplying a product to the market that it will not meet the accessibility requirements under section 15(1). Section 15(6) requires the distributor, where the manufacturer relies on the disproportionate-burden limb, to attach to that information the manufacturer's sworn statement that it received no subsidy, gift or similar payment to secure accessibility.

Section 15(7) exempts a manufacturer, importer or distributor that is a microenterprise from the duty to inform the authority under section 15(5). Section 19(1) names the Czech Trade Inspection as the supervisory authority for products. Section 20 requires the authority to call on the distributor of a non-compliant product to take corrective measures within a reasonable period, then to withdraw it from the market, and if it does not, to ban its supply or decide on its withdrawal.

Section 25(5) makes it an offence for a distributor to fail to act with due care or to ensure compliance, to fail to verify the CE marking, the instructions and the identification duties before supply, to fail to inform the manufacturer, importer or authority, or to fail to correct or withdraw a non-compliant product.

Section 25(6) makes it an offence for a manufacturer, authorised representative, importer or distributor to fail to identify the operators under section 10, to fail to keep the assessment and its supporting documents, to fail to inform the authority under section 15(5) or give the required content, or to omit the sworn statement under section 15(6).

Section 25(1) makes it an offence for any legal person or entrepreneur to affix the CE marking without entitlement or to draw up or alter a declaration of conformity without entitlement. Section 25(8) sets the maximum fine for a distributor at 10,000,000 koruna for offences under section 25(5)(a) and (d), at 5,000,000 koruna for section 25(5)(b), at 2,000,000 koruna for section 25(5)(c), and at 1,000,000 koruna for section 25(5)(e).

Section 26(1) gives the offence proceedings to the authority that supervises the duty breached, and section 26(2) lets the Czech Trade Inspection collect the fine it imposes. Section 30 of the Act on liability for offences (250/2016) sets a limitation period of 3 years for an offence whose maximum fine reaches 100,000 koruna, which covers every offence in section 25. Section 28(1) applies the duties of distributors to products placed on the market after 28 June 2025. Section 29 brought the Act into effect on 28 June 2025.