Lien Rice Co. engaging in deceptive awards which affect the trading order

Chinese Taipei

Case:

Lien Rice Co. engaging in deceptive awards which affect the trading order

Key Words:

deception, obvious unfairness, prizes or awards

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of 24 January 1996 (the 224th Commission Meeting); Disposition (85) Kung Ch(u Tzu No. 026

Industry:

Food Industry (2010)

Relevant Laws:

Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. Lien Rice Co., upon which this Disposition is served, organized a promotional campaign (known as Chung Hsing Rice Sweepstakes). During the campaign, the manufacturer of Shang Hao cooking pots, originally prizes for the campaign, allegedly faced an operation crisis. After confirming the existence of such crisis, Lien Rice canceled the prizes of Shang Hao cooking pot and increased the number of Crocodile watches, another prize, from 1000 to 2000. The promotional materials supplied by Lien Rice Co. merely emphasize the increase of prize watches by 1000, a fact to the advantage of Lien Rice. This Commission found, according to our own investigation, cooking pots of the same grade were not difficult to obtain from the market. The company failed to announce, on its own, the cancellation of cooking pots, making it impossible for its trading counterparts to obtain the cooking pots as described in promotional materials released by Lien Rice. By causing false expectations among participants of this promotional campaign, Lien Rice has committed a deceptive act sufficient to undermine the trading order in the market.

2. Lien Rice claimed that it had requested the winners to pay the prize 90 days prior to distribution of the prizes because importing the Crocodile watches from other countries was a time-consuming process. However, Lien Rice had ordered such watches from domestic suppliers prior to such campaign. Therefore, the watches at issue were not imported, as Lien Rice claimed. In fact, Lien Rice admitted, when appearing before this Commission, that the Company could not determine whether such watches were imported at the time the lottery tickets were printed, and that the Company later found that such Crocodile watches were locally manufactured. Hence, the finding that such company committed a deceptive act and engaged in unfair competition against other rice companies by organizing the campaign in which the lottery tickets stated that the consumers were required to pay taxes in advance due to the long period of time required for importation of such watches is accurate.

3. In conclusion, Lien Rice is hereby penalized for its violation of Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law, which stipulates that an enterprise shall not conduct other deceptive or obviously unfair acts that are sufficient to affect trading order.

　

Summarized by Cheng, Chia-lin
Supervised by Lin, Yu-ch'ing

Appendix:
Lien Rice Co.'s Uniform Invoice No.: 86213452

＠: For information of translation, click here

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