ANTITRUST IMPOSES FIRST FINE FOR MISLEADING ADVERTISING DGTV FINED EURO 10,000 UNDER THE GIULIETTI LAW
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
ANTITRUST IMPOSES FIRST FINE FOR MISLEADING ADVERTISING
DGTV fined Euro 10,000 under the Giulietti law
The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 3 November 2005, for the first time used its power under the Giulietti law to levy fines for misleading advertising by imposing a fine of 10,000 euros on the Associazione Italiana per lo Sviluppo del Digitale Televisivo Terrestre (DGTV). DGTV was punished for not complying with a ruling by the Authority on 14 October 2004 which forbade the further display of an advertisement shown on its site lauding the benefits and potential of digital TV. The advertising message was deemed misleading because its information content was “deficient in clarity and completeness, especially considering the absence of any indication that the television service offered is still only experimental”.
The Authority, which previously in a case of non-compliance could only forward the complaint to the judicial authorities, has now applied the Giulietti law (recently made part of the Consumer Code), which came into force in April 2005 and allows it to act directly against advertisers by imposing fines ranging from a minimum of 1000 to a maximum of 100,000 euros. In the case of repeated violations of an order to withdraw a misleading advertisement, the business may even be shut down for a maximum period of 30 days.
In the case of DGTV, the fine of 10,000 euros was calculated bearing in mind the absence of malice, the brief duration of the infraction, the limited importance of the repeated advertising messages and the financial condition of the business: although DGTV is a non-profit organization which does not operate directly in the market, it nevertheless represents the main network operators.
At the present time, another six non-compliance procedures are under way which may be subject to the new law. Since the Giulietti law came into force, the Authority has received about 450 complaints regarding misleading advertising and 240 sets of proceedings are presently under way.
Rome, 14 November 2005