Businesses need more time to prepare for the soon-to-be-implemented Consumer Protection Act (CPA), a lawyer warns.

"The compliance requirements contained within the act are onerous," said Robby Coelho, a partner at Webber Wentzel.

"Delays by the department of trade and industry (DTI) in issuing important regulations will cost business, especially given that it is less than two months away from coming into effect," Coelho said in a statement.

He said the department was meant to publish regulations on April 24 this year to define which companies would be treated as consumers under the new act. This had not yet been published.

"This is causing major problems for suppliers in preparing for the CPA. How do you prepare when you don't even know which of your customers and transactions will be subject to the CPA? It is a very real problem," said Coelho.

"In order to prepare for the implementation of the CPA, businesses will need to make significant changes, many of which could have serious financial implications."

He said companies would not have enough time to prepare for the legislation, which was scheduled to come into effect by October 24.

"The DTI needs to seriously and urgently consider extending the effective date of the implementation of the CPA and to let business know soon. "

In order to comply, companies would have to "devise new sales and marketing, pricing, refunds and accounting policies and procedures; conduct extensive staff training; review and reconsider all contracts and product labelling; and purchase or upgrade information technology systems - a considerable financial investment", said Coelho.

According to an article published by Eric Levenstein, who is a director at Werksmans incorporating Jan S. de Villiers, the new legislation was aimed at protecting consumers from unscrupulous manufactures.

"The new Consumer Protection Act consolidates the rights of consumers and attempts to promote what has been termed a fair, accessible and sustainable market place for consumer products and services," Levenstein wrote on www.polity.org.za.

"The act sets national standards for consumer protection and deals with the protection of consumers from injuries or hazards caused to such consumers from the sale of defective and inferior goods.

"The consumer's right to fair value, good quality and safety of products purchased will now be entrenched by the new legislation," he wrote.