Unfair competition resulting from a fraudulent prize-drawing activity of Tuntex Mar
Chinese Taipei
Case:
Unfair competition resulting from a fraudulent prize-drawing activity of Tuntex Mar
Key Words:
fraudulent, misleading, prizes
Reference:
Fair Trade Commission Decision of July 2, 1997 (the 296th Commission Meeting); Disposition (86) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 100
Industry:
Retail Industry (5319)
Relevant Laws:
Summary:
1. The Commission received complaints against Tuntex Mart (Tung Yi Enterprise Co., Ltd.) for its failure to carry out a prize-drawing activity as scheduled, which had adversely affected consumers' interests and constituted unfair competition with its competitors. After the investigation, the Commission found that Tuntex Mart indeed failed to organize the prize-drawing activity according to the schedule described in its advertisements. Tuntex Mart subsequently claimed that the date for such prize-drawing activity was printed by mistake, and, therefore, the issuance of the lotteries stopped on October 13, 1996. However, pursuant to this Commission's verification, the Commission found that the issue date for the prize-winning lotteries was October 19, contradicting Tuntex Mart's claim. In addition, all business plans relating to this prize-drawing activity point to the date of October 14 when the prizes were scheduled to be drawn and announced. However, the prizes were not announced until October 31, a date which was significantly later than the originally scheduled one. The time difference was unacceptable to the public and had caused misunderstanding or wrong decisions. This constituted the "falsehood" under Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law. Accordingly, the public trust in the advertising for the products was lost due to the inconsistency between the prize-drawing date and the date indicated in the product advertisement. This act was also detrimental to the mechanism of fair competition and was an act prohibited under Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law.
2. According to the findings of the 296th Commission Meeting on July 2, 1997, the time difference between the prize-drawing date indicated in the advertisement and the actual prize-drawing date was unacceptable to the public and was conducive to misunderstanding or wrong decision. The acts violated Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law, which prohibits false advertising. Therefore, a disposition is hereby imposed pursuant to Article 41 of the same law, and Tuntex Mart is required to cease immediately false or misleading representations or statements regarding its prize-giving commercials.
Summarized by Yang, Hsiu-yun
Supervised by Liu, Chien-hsun
Appendix:
Tung Yih Ent. Co., Ltd.'s Uniform Invoice No.: 22267376
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