COMPETITION COUNCIL PRESENTS ADVERTISING ASSESSMENT GUIDELINES

On 8 October 2013, the Competition Council presented the Guidelines on Assessment of Misleading and Unlawful Comparative Advertising (Advertising Assessment Guidelines or Guidelines). The Guidelines lay down major criteria applied in the assessment of advertising.  Traders, advertising practitioners and other parties in advertising are advised to use the aforementioned criteria for assessing whether their advertisement is not misleading. The document includes a number of examples from the Council’s practice and court cases and summarizes  information from the Law on Advertising, Law on Prohibition of Unfair Business-to-Consumers Commercial Practices, Law on Competition as well as provisions of the European Union directives, practices of courts and other sources. The Guidelines also clearly outline the wording to be avoided in advertising.

“We hope that this document will be of great benefit to traders, advertising practitioners and other parties in advertising as well as ordinary consumers. Most often our economic behaviour is determined by advertising – convincing, attractive and colourful, but, unfortunately, sometimes misleading. The Guidelines present the principles followed by the Council when assessing complaints on allegedly misleading advertising. In a nutshell, for business – a set of clear game rules and for an ordinary consumer – opportunity to receive more truthful and detailed information” – says Šarūnas Keserauskas, Chairman of the Council.

Together with the Guidelines the Council’s experts prepared a brief note wherein the most important criteria for advertising assessment, permitted and prohibited claims and other relevant information is presented in a concise and precise manner.

For the past few years the Council has been deeply involved in prevention, explanation and close collaboration with business community. Having received a complaint about a suspected infringement of the Law on Advertising, the Council often approach companies with a suggestion to amend or change the advertisement concerned, or terminate its dissemination. In 2012 the Council sent 74 requests to amend an advertisement or terminate its dissemination, in the first half of this year – 69. The statistics proves that collaboration based on a dialogue and not on fines alone is the right choice: in 2011 the Council adopted 12 resolutions on dissemination of unlawful advertisement, whereas in 2012 – five, and in 2013 – six.

The Council has also presented Explanatory note concerning cases involving minor infringements of the Law on Advertising and adopted a resolution on the priority of the Council’s activity when enforcing the Law on Advertising. These documents explain how the Council determines whether an advertisement is misleading and whether a disseminated comparative advertisement meets the provisions of the aforementioned legal acts.

Note: Guidelines on Assessment of Misleading and Unlawful Comparative Advertising has no formal legal status and is an advisory document only.

Communication Division