Complaint alleging the "Green Leaf
Village" house sale advertisement produced by Ch'ang Yi Industrial Co.,
Ltd. contained false information in violation of the Fair Trade Law
Chinese Taipei
Case:
Complaint alleging the "Green Leaf Village" house sale advertisement
produced by Ch'ang Yi Industrial Co., Ltd. contained false information in
violation of the Fair Trade Law
Key Words:
false advertising, public facilities
Reference:
Fair Trade Commision Decision of June 7, 2000 (the 448th Commissioners' Meeting);
Disposition (89) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 099
Industry:
Construction Investment Industry (6811)
Relevant Laws:
Article 21
and the forepart of Article 41
of the Fair Trade Law
Summary:
- Complainants stated that they purchased four houses from Ch'ang Yi Industrial
Co., Ltd. (Ch'ang Yi ) at T'uhsing Area of the "Green Leaf Village".
They found that the houses were for daily necessity retail, but not for residence
as indicated at the sale advertisement produced by Ch'ang Yi. They also stated
that the house sale advertisement and appendix to the purchase contract both
included many public facilities, among other, such as nine-hole outdoor mini
putting green, open-air music square, hillside footpath, outdoor fountain,
paddling pool etc. into the "Ch'ang Yi Royal Leisure Club". However,
some of the facilities were quite different from those at the diagram of the
advertisement, and some of those were even never built. Therefore they complained
that the advertisement contained false information.
- At the diagram of the advertisement, the T'uhsing Area was presented as
a "residential building" with a chart of furniture arrangement for
reference. It was thus obviously that the building in selling was a residential
building. However, according to the construction permission and the title
deed of the building, the building was designated for daily necessity retail,
which was not even disputed by Ch'ang Yi. Given that the height of every floor
of the building was 4.5 meters, the building's purpose, according to relevant
provisions of the Construction Law, could not be amended to rural residence.
Noting that when consumers are in consideration of buying a house, they always
take whether its purpose is for "daily necessity retail" or "residence"
as an important element. Noting also that if consumers utilize commercial
real estate as residential building, they will be in a situation of "violating
the law". Their living environment will be complicating and their favorable
banking loan will be affected. Hence in this case it should not be established
that the consumers' interests would not be harmed.
- After on-site investigation the Fair Trade Commission found that some facilities
of the "Ch'ang Yi Royal Leisure Club" such as open-air music square,
outdoor fountain, paddling pool had been completed. However, the nine-hole
outdoor mini putting green and the hillside footpath that highlighted the
scenic design of the advertisement were never built. Neither the semi-circular
roof of the open-air music square was built. A designed full-court basketball
field had been turned into half. The size and location of some of the public
facilities were different from those at the diagram of the advertisement,
to which consumers would surely find these differences quite unacceptable.
Furthermore, given that the construction was located on hill-slope, conservation
and public safety issues should have already been taken into consideration
at its original design, but not putting adjustments to the design of public
facilities only when the government's regulations so required. The size of
the sediment trap in the area where the nine-hole outdoor mini putting green
was to be built was also different, and the hillside footpath had not been
built. It is in fact a question whether or not Ch'ang Yi could construct the
public facilities according to the size and proportion indicated at the aforesaid
diagram.
- In sum Ch'ang Yi had made false and misleading representations with respect
to the public facilities at the aforesaid advertisement in violation of Article
21 (1) of the Fair Trade Law. Although an amendment to that Article went into
force on 5 February 1999, in this case, as the acts of Ch'ang Yi occurred
in 1996, the pre-amended version shall be applied to. Therefore, the Commission,
pursuant to the forepart of Article 41 of the Fair Trade Law, orders Ch'ang
Yi to stop or correct its acts.
Appendix:
Ch'ang Yi Industrial Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 52367648
Summarized by Chiang, Kuo-Lun
Supervised by Wu, Ting-Hung
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