O incumprimento do contrato de crédito ao consumo pelo consumidor

Consumer relations, established between the Consumer and the Creditor, which carry a consequent inequality of contractual positioning between the parties, have been pushing the legislator to adopt more rigid regulations with regard to lending for the purchase of goods or services of consum issues. In this sense, the Decree-Law 359/91 was approved, meanwhile repealed by the Decree-Law 133/2009, which regulates the consumer credit agreement’s regime in the portuguese legal system. Through this contract, the financier makes available to the consumer a certain amount of money, which the consumer must repay, plus the respective remuneration (interest) and other charges, according to a refund plan agreed by the parties. The consumer will be in delay if he breaches this stipulation. In case of default, the creditor, notwithstanding, can choose to wait for the performance by the debtor, promote the loss of benefit of the term or the termination of the contract. From the outset it would seem that, in one way or another, the financier, by imposing a forced shortening of the contract duration initially agreed, will lose the right to remuneration for the provision of capital agreed, but not verified. Nevertheless, unlike presently, the previous regime allowed the parties to rule otherwise, being permitted to agree to the payment of interest of outstanding installments. On the other hand, in the consumer credit contract the principle of freedom of contractual provision of the parties is strongly mitigated by the special legislation, which prevents the waiver of rights by the consumer, and by the regime of general contractual terms, which restricts the freedom of the financier to stipulate the contractual content freely and the freedom of the consumer to negotiate. For all these reasons, associated with the growing need of credit resource to satisfy their needs of consumption, it is confirm the relevance of legislative intervention on consumers protection in the context of hiring credit.

A protecção jurídica do consumidor em Angola

The scope of the present work is to study the legal protection conferred upon the consumer in Angola, especially as regards electronic communication agreements. Its purpose is to promote consumers’ rights and contribute to its defence given the relatively privileged position of professionals in their relationship with consumers. With this in mind, we have made a description of the Consumer Law in Angola based on the Angolan Constitution (as the law that establishes the fundamental rights and guarantees of citizens) and on the Consumer’s Defence Law, which, as the basic law regarding consumers’ rights, provides the framework for this dissertation. We have analysed several aspects relating to consumer relationships, starting from its concept and rights of consumers and covering the legal and contractual mechanisms put in place for their protection. We have also analysed the Advertising Law with a view to better understand consumer’s rights before advertising campaigns carried out by professionals whilst promoting their goods and services and, additionally, to understand the duties and principles that shall be complied with in such campaigns with the purpose to protect the rights and interests of consumers. From a criminal point of view, we have briefly covered the crimes against consumers provided for in the Penal Code and the Law of Infractions against the Economy. In the second part of this work, we have summarised the institutions that protect the rights and interests of consumers, which include the Public Prosecutor Office, the National Institute for the Defence of the Consumers and the Consumers’ Associations. The third and last part of this work covers electronic communications agreements. Given the fact that there is no specific legislation in this matter, our analysis was based on the Civil Code – specifically the part relating to contracts – the Law on General Contractual Terms and Conditions and the Consumer’s Defence Law. We have analysed the formation of contracts, compliance and consumers’ rights resulting from contract breach. We further have appealed to the Angolan legislator to legislate certain aspects of consumer relationships, especially those where breach of consumers’ rights are blatant and facilitated by the lack of specific laws addressing such cases.

Proposta de um modelo de medição e análise da satisfação de clientes em empresas de software : caso prático do ambiente business-to-business

Os estudos da satisfação e lealdade do cliente em ambiente Business-to-Business têm emergido devido ao interesse práctico e académico. Recorreu-se a um caso práctico de uma empresa de software internacional, ESRI, a operar em Portugal com modelo de negócio B2B e comportamento de compra extensivo. Desenvolveu-se um modelo estrutural com 11 variáveis latentes: lealdade; satisfação; imagem; atmosfera; cooperação; adaptação; processos; tecnologia; orientação ao cliente; competências; colaboradores e comunicação. Foram analisadas 304 respostas ao questionário de satisfação e de seguida aplicou-se o modelo a seis grupos de clientes segmentados de acordo com a contribuição do cliente para as receitas e o comportamento no processo de decisão de compra. Recorreu-se a modelos SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) com estimação dos parâmetros através da metodologia PLS (partial Least Squares). Os resultados mostram nos seis segmentos, que os valores da empresa, a cooperação através da competência dos colaboradores e da orientação ao cliente e a tecnologia são factores mais importantes para a satisfação e lealdade dos clientes.