Chin Wei Sheng Co. violated the Fair Trade Law for its broadcast false advertising and damaging the complainant's reputation through Po Teh Cable Television in Hsinchu

Chinese Taipei

Case:

Chin Wei Sheng Co. violated the Fair Trade Law for its broadcast false advertising and damaging the complainant's reputation through Po Teh Cable Television in Hsinchu

Key Words:

deceptive act, clean water purifier, tap water

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of February 28, 1996 (the 228th Commission Meeting); Disposition (85) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 036

Industry:

Retail Industry (4020)

Relevant Laws:

Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. According to the complaint filed to the Fair Trade Commission, Chin Wei Sheng broadcasted a commercial for its Clean Water Purifier through Po Teh Cable Television in Hsin Chu in September, 1995. In the commercial, a demonstration was conducted where a water testing agent for determining water quality was added to each glass of water. It was claimed that because of the impurities in tap water, the water turned yellow after the addition of the agent. The water treated by the Clean Water Purifier and contained in other glasses did not turn yellow, because there was no impurity after such treatment. The water testing agent used in the commercial is in fact typically used for testing residual chlorine in water. It is normal that water containing chlorine will turn yellow with the addition of such testing agent. Tap water contains residual chlorine because chlorine is added for sterilization in accordance with Article 9 of the Provincial Enforcement Rules for the Statute for Potable Water. It is for this reason that effective residual chlorine in tap water is maintained at 0.2 ~ 1.5 mg/liter. Therefore, that tap water turns yellow, which indicates its chlorine content, after the addition of the above testing agent is an indication of its safety. In order to promote the sales of its products, Chin Wei Sheng accused falsely that the quality of the tap water supplied by the Taiwan Water Department is bad. Such act is claimed likely to have violated the Fair Trade Law.

2. According to the Commission's investigation, the above testing agent is used to determine the chlorine content in tap water, which means water containing chlorine will turn yellow upon addition of the testing agent. The chlorine content in tap water results from the water supplier's addition of chlorine pursuant to laws and regulations (Article 9 of the Provincial Enforcement Rules for the Statue for Potable Water and with reference to Article 10 of Taipei City Enforcement Rules for the same statute and Article 9 of the Kaohsiung City Enforcement Rules of the same statute) for sterilization purposes to ensure the quality of potable water. The above fact has nothing to do with Ching Wei Sheng's claim that tap water contains impurities accumulated in the delivery process from underground pipelines, household water towers or reservoirs, to end users. Therefore, even if the Clean Water Purifier of Chin Wei Sheng is indeed effective in filtering out the residual chlorine and limestone, Chin Wei Sheng used an irrelevant residual chlorine test in its commercial with subtitles to indicate that tap water turns yellow because of impurities in the water. Such an action is deceptive to the public and was done to promote its products by the use of irrelevant tests. In addition, Chin Wei Sheng engaged in such action through advertising made known to the general public and used irrelevant tests in a deceptive manner. Since such action is sufficient to undermine trading order, Chin Wei Sheng is found to have violated Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law.

3. Although Chin Wei Sheng claimed that before the complaint was filed in December 1995, such commercials were no longer broadcasted. However, the decision to stop such broadcast was made due to Chin Wei Sheng's involvement in a patent lawsuit. Therefore, the Commission cannot conclude that Chin Wei Sheng took such action without negligence or deceptive intent. In addition, subsequently stopping the broadcast does not exonerate Chin Wei Sheng from its prior violations of the law. Therefore, the Commission finds Chin Wei Sheng to be in violation of Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law.

Summarized by Liu, Shao-chen
Supervised by Hsu, Chao-ying

Appendix:
Chin Wei Sheng Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice No.: 84140595.

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