Law of 8 March 2023 on the accessibility requirements applicable to products and services, duties of providers of electronic communications, audiovisual access, transport, consumer banking, e-book and e-commerce services

Article 1(2), points 1° and 2°, of the Law of 8 March 2023 covers electronic communications services, other than transmission services used for machine-to-machine services, and services providing access to audiovisual media services.

Article 1(2), point 3°, covers the elements of air, rail, inland waterway and bus passenger transport services that are websites, mobile device-based services including mobile applications, electronic tickets and ticketing services, delivery of transport service information, and interactive self-service terminals located in the Union. Article 1(2), point 3°, as amended by the Law of 29 August 2023, excludes urban, suburban and regional transport services.

Article 1(2), point 3°, provides that for urban, suburban and regional transport services only the interactive self-service terminals of point e) apply. Article 2 of the Law of 29 August 2023 provides that it enters into force on 28 June 2025. Article 1(2), points 4° to 6°, covers consumer banking services, e-books and dedicated software, and e-commerce.

Article 2, point 29°, defines consumer banking services as the provision to consumers of consumer credit contracts and mortgage credit contracts under the Consumer Code, electronic money, payment services, the services of points 1, 2, 4 and 5 of Sections A and C of Annex II to the amended Law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector, and services linked to payment accounts.

Article 2, point 31°, defines e-commerce services as services provided at a distance, through websites and mobile device-based services, by electronic means and at the individual request of a consumer, with a view to concluding a consumer contract.

Article 2, point 40°, defines services providing access to audiovisual media services to include the electronic programme guides and the accessibility elements, such as subtitling for deaf or hard of hearing people, audio description, spoken subtitles and sign language interpretation, resulting from the measures of Article 27quater of the amended Law of 27 July 1991 on electronic media.

Article 1(4) of the Law covers, among the contents of websites and mobile applications, published pre-recorded time-based media and published office file formats.

Article 2(4), points (a) and (b), of the Directive excludes from its scope pre-recorded time-based media and office file formats published before 28 June 2025; Article 1(4) of the Law lists published pre-recorded time-based media and published office file formats without that date, and Article 34(1) applies the Law to the contents of Article 1(4) that are provided to consumers after its entry into force.

Article 1(5) of the Law does not apply to online maps and mapping services where the essential information for maps used for navigation is provided in an accessible digital form, to third-party content that the operator neither funds, develops nor controls, or to archive content that is not updated or modified after the Law’s entry into force.

Article 1(6) of the Law is without prejudice to Article 10ter of the amended Law of 18 April 2001 on copyright and related rights and to Regulation (EU) 2017/1563 on the cross-border exchange of accessible-format copies of certain works. Article 6(3) of the Law requires all services other than urban, suburban and regional transport services to meet the requirements of Annex I, Section III, to the Directive, and all services to meet those of Section IV.

Article 4(3) of the Directive, which Article 6(3) of the Law implements, sets the same two sections for services. Article 6(4) of the Law exempts microenterprises that provide services from the accessibility requirements of paragraph 3 and from all obligations relating to compliance with them. Article 6(5) of the Law has OSAPS provide guidelines and tools to microenterprises, developed in consultation with the authorities responsible for the products and services concerned.

Article 7 of the Law deems services that meet the accessible-information requirements of the EU passenger rights regulations to conform to the corresponding requirements of the Law, and applies in full any additional requirement the Law sets.

Article 15 of the Law requires a service provider to design and provide services in accordance with the accessibility requirements and to prepare the information of Annex II explaining how the services meet them, made available to the public in written and oral form, including in a manner accessible to persons with disabilities, and kept as long as the service is available.

Article 15(3) of the Law requires a service provider to keep procedures in place so that the provision of services remains in conformity, taking account of changes in the characteristics of the service, in the requirements and in the harmonised standards or technical specifications relied on.

Article 15(4) and (5) of the Law require a service provider whose service is not in conformity to take the necessary corrective measures, to inform OSAPS immediately with details of the non-conformity and the corrective measures, to supply on reasoned request the information needed to show conformity, and to cooperate with OSAPS.

Article 13 of the Directive, which Article 15 of the Law implements, requires service providers to design and provide services in accordance with the accessibility requirements and to prepare the Annex V information.

Annex II to the Law requires the provider to include the information assessing how the service meets the accessibility requirements in its general terms and conditions or an equivalent document, containing a general description of the service in accessible formats, the descriptions needed to understand its operation, and a description of how the requirements of Annex I to the Directive are met.

Article 16(1) of the Law applies the accessibility requirements only to the extent that compliance does not require a significant modification that fundamentally alters the nature of the product or service and does not impose a disproportionate burden on the economic operators concerned.

Article 16(3) of the Law requires economic operators to supply evidence for the assessment of Article 16(2), to keep the results for five years from the date a service was last provided, and to give OSAPS a copy of the assessment on request.

Article 16(5) of the Law requires a service provider that relies on the disproportionate-burden limit to renew the assessment for each category or type of service when the service offered is modified, at the request of OSAPS, and in any event at least every five years. Article 16(6) of the Law bars an economic operator from relying on the disproportionate-burden limit when it receives funding from sources other than its own resources, public or private, for improving accessibility.

Article 16(7) of the Law requires an operator that relies on paragraph 1 for a specific service to inform the authorities responsible for checking the conformity of services of the Member State where the service is provided, and excludes microenterprises from that duty.

Article 17(1) of the Law presumes products and services that conform to harmonised standards, or parts of them, whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union to conform to the accessibility requirements to the extent those standards cover them.

Article 25 of the Law has OSAPS, with the authorities responsible for the services concerned, establish and apply procedures to verify the conformity of services including the Article 16 assessment, to follow up complaints, and to verify that the operator has taken the corrective measures needed.

Article 25(1), point 1°, of the Law applies Article 21(2) mutatis mutandis to the verification of a service provider’s Article 16 assessment, under which OSAPS checks that the assessment was carried out, examines it and its results, including the correct use of the criteria of Annex VI to the Directive, and checks conformity with the accessibility requirements. Article 25(2) of the Law lets any natural or legal person report the non-conformity of a service to OSAPS.

Article 25(3) of the Law has OSAPS, where the operator has not taken the necessary corrective measures and the non-conformity persists, inform the competent entity without delay and decide all appropriate measures to restrict or prohibit the provision of the service.

Article 28(2) of the Law lets OSAPS, after checks on services, prohibit or restrict the provision of a non-conforming service, ban it temporarily during the checks, and order or organise the recall, withdrawal, modification and destruction of the product used to provide a non-conforming service. Article 28(1), point 4°, of the Law lets OSAPS prohibit offering for sale a product or providing a service that misleads or risks misleading on its real characteristics.

Article 28(5) of the Law makes the decisions of OSAPS under paragraphs 1 and 2 subject to an appeal for reformation before the administrative tribunal within three months of notification. Article 29 of the Law has the offences established by OSAPS officials of salary categories A and B and by agents of the Customs and Excise Administration from the grade of brigadier principal, who have the status of judicial police officers in the exercise of those functions.

Article 32(1) of the Law lets OSAPS fine an economic operator EUR 250 to EUR 15,000 for refusing to supply documents or information requested in the checking of the conformity of services, or for obstructing that checking. Article 32(2) of the Law lets OSAPS fine an economic operator EUR 250 to EUR 15,000 for not complying with its decisions under Article 24(2) and Article 25(3).

Article 32(3) of the Law makes the administrative fines payable within thirty days of notification of the written decision, notwithstanding an appeal, and opens an appeal for reformation before the administrative tribunal within three months of notification; Article 32(4) entrusts their recovery to the Administration de l’enregistrement, des domaines et de la TVA (Registration Duties, Estates and VAT Authority).

Article 33(1) of the Law punishes an economic operator that contravenes Article 6(1), (2), (3), (5), (6) or (7) or Articles 9, 11, 12, 13 or 15 with a fine of EUR 251 to EUR 500,000, except in the cases of Article 6(4) and Article 16(1). Article 33(2) of the Law punishes an operator already sentenced to a fine under paragraph 1 with a fine of EUR 500 to EUR 1,000,000 as a repeat offender.

Article 33(3) of the Law counts final convictions in other Member States towards repeat offending where the offences are also punishable under Directive (EU) 2019/882 as transposed there. Article 33(4) of the Law lets the courts order the confiscation and destruction of the goods used for the offence and the confiscation of illicit profits.

Article 16 of the Criminal Code sets the fine in correctional matters at EUR 251 at least, the floor of Article 33(1), and Article 36 of the Criminal Code provides that the fine for a legal person in correctional matters is at least EUR 500 and that its maximum is double the maximum the law punishing the offence sets for natural persons, so EUR 1,000,000 for a legal person under Article 33(1) and EUR 2,000,000 for a legal person that is a repeat offender under Article 33(2).

Article 34(1) of the Law applies it to the services of Article 1(2) that are provided to consumers after its entry into force. Article 34(2) of the Law lets service providers keep providing their services until 28 June 2030 using products they lawfully used for similar services before that date, and lets service contracts agreed before the Law’s entry into force run unchanged until they expire, but for no more than five years from that date.

Article 34(3) of the Law lets self-service terminals that service providers lawfully used before the Law’s entry into force continue to be used for similar services until the end of their economically useful life, which may not exceed twenty years after they were put into service. Article 32 of the Directive makes the 28 June 2030 transitional period mandatory for Member States and leaves the self-service terminal option to them.

Article 35(1) of the Law applies amendments to Annexes I and VI of the Directive from the day the corresponding European Union acts enter into force. Article 35(2) of the Law requires the minister to publish a notice in the Journal officiel of the amendments that have taken effect, with a reference to the act published in the Official Journal of the European Union.