1. Earlier, the FTC decided at the 1275th Commissioners' Meeting on Apr. 13, 2016 that Le Le Gas Enterprise Co. (hereinafter referred to as the offender) in the greater Taipei area had violated Article 25 of the Fair Trade Law by printing and distributing service notices that users could easily mistake as coming from their natural gas provider before the company used the pretext of making safety inspections to push its gas safety devices. The overall marketing practice was deceptive conduct able to affect trading order; hence, the FTC made the decision to transfer the case for the justice department to review the case and take the person in charge to court. Since Paragraph 1 of Article 26 of the Administrative Penalty Act applied, it was decided at the FTC Commissioners' Meeting to order the offender to cease its unlawful act without imposing an administrative fine at the moment. Later on Feb. 17, 2017, the FTC received the reply from Taipei District Prosecutors Office stating that the outcome of its investigation was not enough to consider the defendant Mr. Liao had deceived consumers and caused them to make wrong decisions. Plus, after the safety inspection service was provided, even though the NT$2,900 consumers paid for a gas valve had been expensive, it was difficult to conclude the difference was not within the reasonable profit range. Furthermore, there was no evidence to prove Mr. Liao or his employees had applied deception to make consumers to make wrong decisions. Therefore, Taipei District Prosecutors Office found it difficult to consider Mr. Liao having engaged in fraudulent practices and closed the case. However, the FTC was set to decide whether an administrative fine should be imposed on the offender for adopting the inappropriate approach to sell gas safety devices
2. Findings of the FTC after investigation:
   1. To protect the procedural rights of the party in concern, the FTC sent a written request on May 10, 2017 and another on May 23, 2017 for the offender to come to the FTC to present statements regarding the facts and reasons provided in the Disposition Kung-Ch'u-Tzu No. 105028. The written requests clearly indicated the FTC would review the case according to existing evidence if the offender failed to show up at the time specified. Both requests were legally delivered, but the offended did not come to the FTC to present statements on the date specified.
   2. As set forth in Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 26 of the Administrative Penalty Act, "If one and single act constitutes simultaneously a criminal offense or offenses as well as a breach of duty under administrative law, it shall be punishable under the criminal law. However, an administrative penalty may be additionally imposed in the case that the act is punishable by any other types of administrative penalty or that no forfeiture is pronounced by the court over the things that may be forfeited because of the act." "In the case of an act described in the preceding paragraph over which a final decision of non-prosecution or deferred prosecution is made, or over which a final judgment of acquittal, exemption from prosecution, lack of jurisdiction, not to be put on trial, not placed under protective measures, exemption from punishment or reprieve from punishment is pronounced, penalty may be imposed under the provisions with respect to breach of duty under administrative law." In this case, the offender violated Article 25 of the Fair Trade Law by adopting inappropriate approaches to market gas safety devices. The FTC gave out the sanction via Disposition Kung-Ch'u-Tzu No. 105028 issued on Apr. 13, 2016. However, as the person in charge of the business of the offender was suspected of committing fraud, the FTC transferred the case for the justice department to investigate and take the person in charge of the business of the offender to court. Hence, the FTC only ordered the offender to cease the unlawful act and decided not to impose any administrative fine until the final court decision was made, whether it was no prosecution, the offender was found not guilty, or the case was dismissed, rejected or not reviewed. By then, the FTC could act according to Paragraph 2 of Article 26 of the Administrative Penalty Act and imposed an administrative fine. After Taipei District Prosecutors Office closed the case with the conclusion that there was no concrete evidence to prosecute the offender for criminal fraud, the FTC regained the power to give its sanction since criminal penalty was no long possible. Therefore, the FTC imposed on the offender an administrative fine of NT$100,000 for violating Article 25 of the Fair Trade Law by engaging in an inappropriate practice to market gas safety devices.

Summarized by: Chen, Tse-Hsiang; Supervised by: Liu, Chi-Jung