Case law

  • Case Details
    • National ID: Decision 1254/2008
    • Member State: Romania
    • Common Name:link
    • Decision type: Supreme court decision
    • Decision date: 26/03/2008
    • Court: Supreme Court (Bucharest)
    • Subject:
    • Plaintiff: Telemobil S.A
    • Defendant: National Audiovisual Council of Romania
    • Keywords: advertisement, misleading price, price, price information
  • Directive Articles
    Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 6, 1., (d) Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 2. Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 7, 4., (c)
  • Headnote
    Representing both the total price and the price excluding applicable taxes of a product, where the total price is represented in a less clear way, constitutes a misleading commercial practice.
  • Facts
    The plaintiff, a trader dealing with satellite communication activities, launched a promotional campaign for one of its products.

    The TV commercial contained both a written and audiovisual indication of a "4 USD" price excluding VAT, whereas the total price of "4,74 USD", i.e. including VAT, was only indicated in writing and in such a manner that it was hard to read the total price.

    Next, the price excluding VAT was shown for 2 seconds, whereas the total price was only depicted for 1 second.

    Due to the breach of the advertising regulation, the administrative body in charge of taking legal actions against misleading advertising sanctioned the plaintiff.
  • Legal issue
    In a short reasoning, the court considered the TV commercial to be clearly misleading.

    The reasoning of the court was that the differentiated depiction of the two prices, i.e. audiovisual versus only in writing (respectively for the price excluding and including VAT), could reasonably lead to difficulties in correctly perceiving the actual price of the service concerned.
  • Decision

    Does representing both the total price and the price excluding applicable taxes of a product, where the total price is represented in a less clear way, constitute a misleading commercial practice?

    Full text: Full text

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  • Result
    The plaintiff's request of annulment of the sanction applied by the administrative body was denied.