VILNIUS REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COURT: UAB PIGU MISLED CONSUMERS

Vilnius Regional Administrative Court (hereinafter – Court) rejected the appeal by UAB Pigu (hereinafter – Company) against the Competition Council‘s (hereinafter – Council) decision of 16 June 2016 whereby the Company disseminated misleading perfume and home appliance advertisements and thus breached Article 5 of the Law on Advertising.

The Council found that on 29 July 2015 the Company disseminated misleading advertising claims: “The big summer sale; Special perfume and home appliance offers for one day!; up to 80 %“; “SUPER offer! Perfume and home appliances – up to 80 %!“. Consumers were offered to buy two different types of goods with up to 80 per cent discount. However, in reality the Company offered only one type of perfume to which this discount was applied, and the biggest discount applied to home appliances (according to the data indicated in www.pigu.lt) was only 58 per cent.

For the widespread misleading advertising the Council fined the Company EUR 5400.

It is already the second infringement by the Company in the last two years. In 2015 the Council found that the Company misled consumers and made a false impression about the value of various goods. The Council fined the Company EUR 7630.

In 2015 the Council‘s experts examined 427 notifications related to misleading advertising and sent out 159 letters encouraging companies to amend potentially misleading advertisements.