COMPETITION LAW IN TOURISM ACTIVITIES 245 In order to achieve the indicated protection, the Legislator imposes obligations to the merchant, thereby establishing limitations on the exercise of freedom of business and private contracting in accordance with No. 28 of the Constitution. Article 31 of Law 7472 establishes the obligations of the merchant and the producer towards the consumer, such obligations are, among others, the following: “b) Provide sufficient information to the consumer, in Spanish, in a clear and truthful manner (...) c) Offer, promote or advertise the goods and services in accordance with the provisions of article 34 of this Law”. In the case of the first of the indicated obligations, it is linked to the guarantee that the consumer, in the act of consumption, has sufficient information so that his decision is not vitiated. This obligation also protects the health and safety values, as the consumer must know the details of the good or service that is intended to be sold or lent. In the second case, the interests of consumers as a whole are also covered, since it refers to product conditions, eventual damage to health in case of misuse and so on. These two cases lead to the fact that in the event that the producer or merchant that produces or sells them fails to comply with the aforementioned obligations, he may be sanctioned under the terms of Article 54 of Law 7472, having as a parameter for the assessment of the seriousness of the sanction the elements provided by Article 56 of the aforementioned law, one of which is the degree of “risk to health, safety and the environment”, which makes clear the preventive protection sought. From the foregoing, it is possible to determine that in consumer matters, the existence or nonexistence of an aggrieved person cannot be the criterion that implies the admissibility to open an administrative sanctioning procedure. Misinforming the consumer in general supposes the breach of an obligation, which in turn compromises a right of consumers as a collective. Thus, the specific damage may not occur without it being illegitimate to open a procedure to assess the creditable culpability of a certain producer or merchant who has breached a specific duty and thereby exposes a risk to the community of consumers. Thus, in the case under analysis it is clear that the breach of the obligations provided for by the Law governing the producer or merchant should be understood as an offense susceptible to be sanctioned, as provided for in the same Law, for the simple fact of existing and regardless of the existence or inexistence of a specific or determinable damage, as well as of a specific identified aggrieved party.
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