ADVERTISING BY UAB NACIONALINIS ŽALOS IR SKOLŲ IŠIEŠKOJIMO CENTRAS AND UAB TIKROJI TURTO KAINA WAS MISLEADING

On December 19, the Competition Council (the Council) imposed a joint fine of 5000 LTL on two legal services companies, namely, UAB Nacionalinis žalos ir skolų išieškojimo centras and UAB Tikroji turto kaina, for misleading advertising.

The Council determined that from 6 May 2011 to 3 September 2013 the two companies used the following statements on their commercial vehicles and outdoor advertising: “Leader in debt collection”, “Nacionalinis žalos ir skolų išieškojimo centras – the leader in debt collection”, “Potential leader in debt collection”, “We work so that our clients would say: the leader in debt collection”, “Debt lawyers”, “Debt collection lawyers” and “Lawyers”.

With regard to Article 5 of the Law on Advertising, the Council determined that the aforementioned statements were misleading as consumers were led to believe that the company is the leader in debt collection even though such fact was not proven. The mentioned statements could have determined consumers’ decision to choose the services of this particular company. The advertisements stating that the services are provided by lawyers who are qualified to plead at court were also found to be obviously misleading since neither UAB Nacionalinis žalos ir skolų išieškojimo centras nor UAB Tikroji turto kaina had been qualified and licensed as lawyers.

 Even though such advertising statements as “Potential leader in debt collection”, “We work so that our clients would say: the leader in debt collection” did not directly describe the company as being the leader or did not indicate they provide qualified legal services as lawyers, the specific way the advertisements were presented allowed to consider such advertisements as misleading (“potential”, “we work so that our clients would say” were all written in small, blurry letters of a colour similar to the one of the background).

UAB Tikroji turto kaina had already been fined for misleading advertising of a similar type in 2009. The Council had imposed a fine of 11 500 LTL then.

Notes

(1) Advertising shall in all circumstances be regarded as misleading if it contains the attributes of misleading commercial practice established in subparagraph 1-21 of Article 7 of the Law on Prohibition of Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices including false claims about the licence (permit) held by an undertaking. (Law on Advertising, Article 5 (6))

(2) Misleading advertising means advertising which in any way, including its presentation, misleads or is likely to mislead the persons to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches and which, by reason of its misleading nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour or which, for those reasons, harms or is likely to harm another person’s capabilities to compete (Law on Advertising, Article 2(3)).