TELEVISIONE DIGITALE TERRESTRE
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
FIRST ANTITRUST PROCEEDING TO FINE PURVEYORS OF MISLEADING ADVERTISING IN THE DIGITAL TV SECTOR
For the first time, the Italian Competition Authority is to apply the new regulations on misleading advertising which allow fines to be imposed of from 10,000 to 50,000 euros for non-compliance with the Authority’s decisions. At its meeting on 30 June 2005, the Authority began proceedings which may lead to the fining of the Italian Association for the Development of Digital Terrestrial Television. In a determination of 14 October 2004, the Antitrust Authority had held that the advertising on the Italian Association’s website was misleading because its “information content was seriously deficient in clarity and completeness”, especially considering “the absence of any indication that the television service offered is still only experimental and territorial coverage is consequently incomplete, over against the heavy emphasis placed on the vaunted characteristics of digital terrestrial television as modern, generally available and free”. Any further publication of this misleading message was consequently forbidden, without however specifying a penalty because at the time Law no. 496 of April 2005, known as the Giulietti law, was not yet in force. Based on the complaints lodged on 24 and 26 May 2005 by the Difesa del Cittadino [Citizens’ Defence] movement and by Adiconsum, however, the Authority ascertained that on those two days the offending advertising was still shown on the site. Hence the opening of the proceedings for non-compliance, which must be completed within 120 days from the time the parties have been notified.
This proceeding represents the first case in which the Authority has been able to make use of the sanctions provided for in the new law: in cases of repeated non-compliance, the maximum penalty is the shutting down of the business. The new law also foresees fines for misleading advertising which may vary from 1,000 to 100,000 euros, according to the seriousness and the duration of the violation. In the case of misleading advertisements dealing with children and adolescents or dangerous products, the minimum fine is 25,000 euros.
Rome, 7 July 2005