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As already discussed in a previous post, any company advertising its products/services, having a website or performing any marketing activity should carefully review its compliance with the regulations governing unfair commercial practices.
This is even more true after the issue by the European Commission the Guidance on the Implementation/Application of the Directive 2005/29/EC on Unfair Commercial Practices. The Guidance has clarified – among others – that:
- the obligations prescribed by the Directive are applicable also to before/after sale practices e.g. the Italian Competition Authority fined a telecoms company for delaying and preventing its customers from switching to another service provider;
- social networking sites and blogs can lead to hidden unfair commercial practices when – for instance – companies pay bloggers to promote and advertise their products;
- unfair commercial practices can arise through price comparison websites that have contractual arrangements with or belong to traders and are used to conceal advertisements of such trader’s products;
- combined or tied offers, discounts, price reductions, promotional sales, commercial lotteries, competitions, and vouchers fall within the scope of the Directive;
- unfair commercial and therefore prohibited practices include the use of packaging of products similar to those of competitors if such similarity is able to confuse the average consumers.
The broadening of the scope of the Directive and the considerable applicable sanctions give rise to relevant risks for companies engaged in advertising activities.
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