COMPETITION COUNCIL FINES PIGU FOR UNFAIR REFERENCE PRICES

On 24 March, the Council found that misleading reference pricing on an online shop Pigu could have created false impression of value of goods. The Council concluded that online advertisements could have created a false impression of substantially reduced prices and, thus, breach part 1 of Article 5 of the Law on Advertising.

The Council considered the advertisements misleading because the company:

• referred to relatively old prices applied 1.5 or even 3 years ago;
• referred to prices applied just for a very short time in the past (in some cases less than few hours), thus, shaping false illusion of value;
• failed to prove that the reference price used in the advertisement of OBI shelf was not fake.

The Council took into consideration all the relevant circumstances including the fact that Pigu mislead consumers by increasing the perceived value of the goods. The Council fined Pigu 7,630 euros.