Tunyun Co., Ltd. and Chien Tai Cement Co., Ltd. published false advertising for the "85 International Plaza" by concealing relevant information on public facilities in violation of the Fair Trade Law
Case:
Tunyun Co., Ltd. and Chien Tai Cement Co., Ltd. published false advertising for the "85 International Plaza" by concealing relevant information on public facilities in violation of the Fair Trade Law
Key Words:
"promised leasing", rate of reward, false information, misleading, concealment of important transaction information
Reference:
Fair Trade Commission Decision of October 26, 2000 (the 468th Commissioners' Meeting); Disposition (88) K'ung Ch'u Tzu No. 187
Industry:
Architectural Engineering Industry (4601); Soil and Rock Extraction Industry (0912)
Relevant Laws:
Summary:
1. This case was introduced by a person, who made the following claims. For promotion of "85 International Plaza", Tunyun Co., Ltd. (Tunyun) and Chien Tai Cement Co., Ltd. (Chien Tai) placed advertisements in which stated "promised leasing for two years, up to 16% reward guaranteed". However, the two companies to whom the claims were made provided to those who purchased the second floor of the basement merely 5% reward, which was obviously different from that at their advertisements. It was also claimed that the purchase contract of the "Delicious Food Street" at the second floor of the basement did not sufficiently disclose relevant information on public facilities that was obviously unfair to customers. 2. The "promised leasing for two years, up to 16% reward guaranteed" advertisement was put into two promotional publications that were devoted mainly to introduce the overall environment of the building of "85 International Plaza" and respectively the details of each floor. However, the advertisements failed to indicate the applicable subjects of the advertisement. Reviewing the overall content of the advertisements showed that, without additional description, they would give the customers impression that the so-called "promised leasing for two years, up to 16% reward guaranteed", which equals to 8% annual rate of reward, employs to all floors of the building at issue. However, the two companies who were alleged provided to the purchasers of the second floor of the basement only 5% annual reward, which was quite different from that at the advertisements. In addition, the layout of the purchasing contract of the second floor of the basement provided by the two companies who were alleged printed out merely the principal structure, subordinate structure, public facilities, and amount of the total surface area. It however failed to indicate the proportion that public facilities occupied, neither the way of its calculation. Both of which could be found from a photocopy of the purchasing contract. Relevant information on public facilities is important to buyers when purchasing premises. Tunyun and Chien Tai's failure to fully disclose important transaction information was clearly unfair to their counterparts. 3. Reasons for the disposition: (1) The advertisements at issue asserted "promised leasing for two years, up to 16% reward guaranteed"; however, the reward rate at the case was in fact only 5%. Obviously the two were different to which the range of the difference was not acceptable by general customers. It therefore could be found that the advertisements contained false and misleading representations in violation of Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law (FTL). (2) Tunyun and Chien Tai's failure to fully disclose relevant information on public facilities at their purchasing contract clearly constituted the concealment of important transaction information, which was apparently unfair and violated Article 24 of the FTL. (3) Because the unlawful conduct took place before the amended FTL went into effect on 5 February 1999, the Fair Trade Commission, pursuant to the forepart of Article 41 of the pre-amendment FTL, ordered Tunyun and Chien Tai to cease the offending conduct. Appendix: Tunyun Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 72065570 Chien Tai Cement Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice Number: 03322504 Summarized by Wan-Chun Lee; Supervised by Wey-Jing Chu