Violation of Paragraph 1, Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law by Tung Ya Cable Television Ltd., Co. for false advertising
Chinese Taipei
Case:
Violation of Paragraph 1, Article 21 of the Fair Trade Law by Tung Ya Cable Television Ltd., Co. for false advertising
Key Words:
false advertising, mislead, cable television broadcasting system
Reference:
Fair Trade Commission Decision of October 14,1998 (the 362nd Commission Meeting); Disposition Ref. (87) Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 225
Industry:
Television Program Broadcasting Provider Industry (8530)
Relevant Laws:
Article 21(1) of the Fair Trade Law
Summary:
The complainant, a legally registered cable television broadcasting system company (hereinafter 'cable television company'), found that Tung Ya Cable Television Co., Ltd. (hereinafter respondent) produced and circulated numerous advertisements falsely stating that "other cable television companies in the area would have to suspend broadcasting on January 1 when Tung Ya Cable Television Co. starts broadcasting pursuant to provisions in the Cable Television Law." The respondent, without giving solid proof, stated in its advertisement that other cable television companies including the complainants "disregarded the interests of consumers" and that they "passed-off poor programs for good ones." The respondent’s statement harmed the image of other cable television companies including the complainant’s and thus violated provisions in Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law (FTL).
The performance obligation of a company regarding its advertisement should be based on the importance of the contents in the advertisement since the objective of the advertisement is to increase the trading opportunities of the company and would reduce or eliminate those of other companies. As the statement in the advertisement that other competitors would not be able to provide the same services after the given date is the most important part of the entire advertisement, a higher degree of performance obligation should be applied. Since the respondent did not start broadcasting on January of 1998 as stated in the advertisement, the statement was false.
The advertisement stated that "other cable television system companies in the area would have to suspend broadcasting" and, in exaggeratedly printed characters, that the complainant "passed-off poor programs for good ones." According to provisions in Article 22 of the FTL, a company may not for competition purposes state or circulate a falsehood that harms the reputation of another party. These statements cited provisions in Article 69 of the Cable Television Law without specifying the complainant. The statement assumes according to provisions in the Cable Television Law that if a company completes a cable television system in a certain area, other cable television system companies in the area must suspend transmitting. As it would be difficult for the above-mentioned statement to be construed as harming the reputation of another party, the statement did not violate provisions of Article 22 of the FTL.
The statement referring to "starting to broadcast on January of 1998" was false, violated provisions in Article 21(1) of the FTL and is disposed according to provisions in the first part of Article 41 of the FTL. The respondent shall immediately cease the false and misleading advertisements on the next day after receiving this disposition.
Summarized by Kung, Chin-Lung
Supervised by Chu, Wei-Ching
Appendix:
Tung Ya Cable Broadcasting Ltd., Co.’s Uniform Invoice No.:
84995591