SANCTIONS UPON TEZ TOUR UAB FOR FAILURE TO FULFIL OBLIGATIONS OF THE COMPETITION COUNCIL

The Competition Council announced its Resolution concerning the failure by Tez Tour UAB (the Company) to fulfil the obligations imposed by Resolution of the Competition Council of 19 June 2008. The Resolution obligated the Company to terminate the use of misleading advertising and denounce the previously published misleading statements, having failed which Tez Tour UAB was subjected to a fine of LTL 184,000. This has been a recurrent case of imposition of a fine upon the Company – in 2008, the Company has been twice sanctioned for use of misleading advertising statements.

In this particular case the Competition Council referring to the findings of the investigation concluded that Tez Tour UAB had failed to comply with the obligations imposed upon the Company by the Resolution of the Competition Council of 19 June 2008 to terminate the use of the misleading statements by specifically indicating in the contracts with the customers who had booked accommodation in “Sultan Beach” hotel in Hurghada, Egypt the correct category of the hotel and denounce in the established manner the misleading advertising statements.

The company acknowledged that it had failed to fulfil the obligations imposed by the Competition Council since it had appealed the obligations imposed thereon by the Competition Council to court. The provisions of the Law on Competition, however, provide that the appeal of the resolutions of the Competition Council does not suspend the validity of the such Resolutions unless the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court resolves differently. Tez Tour UAB could not submit to the Competition Council any rulings of the court to that effect and thus had no basis to be exempted from the obligations imposed thereon by the same.

The case concerns the Resolution of 19 June 2008 on the compliance with the requirements of Article 5 of the Law on Advertising of the advertising statements by Tez Tour UAB in its promotional catalogues “Egypt. May - October 2007. Hurghada“, “Egypt. Gran Canaria 2007-2008“ and its website at www.travelman.lt on Sultan Beach hotel in Hurghada resort in Egypt. The advertising statements “Hotel Sultan Beach 3+ stars“, “Country category of the hotel  - 4 stars“ were recognised to constitute misleading advertising. For this infringement of the Law on Competition the Competition Council imposed upon Tez Tour UAB a fine of LTL 30,000.

The Competition Council believes that the misleading advertising claims concerning the category of the hotel could have affected the consumers selecting the tour operator and the hotel, and had an impact upon their decisions and actions in relation to their choice, i.e., upon their economic behaviour, therefore the Company was bound to fulfil the obligations to denounce the misleading statements.