Ivy Liang
Director
Article
6
In January 2022, Estée Lauder (China), the international beauty and skincare company, was fined RMB 2,381,671 (approximately USD 350,000) for false advertising in China.
The company was penalised for publishing an advertisement claiming that its product ''Advanced Night Repair Essence" featured "Youth Index + 77%" and "Softening + 17%, Smooth + 20%, translucent +15%, etc.'' This was considered false and had a lack of evidential support by the administration.
Noting that according to Chinese law, anyone has the right to file a complaint for false advertising or to report the same, being accused of false advertisement can quickly happen in China. Therefore, it is important to know the Chinese law to avoid the risk of high fines.
Below, we set out the relevant grounds, general procedure and timeline, as well as some practical tips.
Article 4: "No advertisement shall contain any false or misleading information, and shall not deceive or mislead consumers. Advertisers shall be held responsible for the authenticity of the contents of advertisements."
Article 28: "An advertisement will be a false advertisement if it deceives or misleads consumers with false or confusing content.
An advertisement is a false advertisement if it falls within any of the following circumstances: …(b) the information on products or services are inconsistent with the actual situations in terms of the performance, function, place of origin, purpose, quality, specification, ingredients, price, producer, valid period, sales, awards of the products or the content, provider, form, quality, price, sales and awards of the services, or in terms of any guarantee relating to the products or services, and such inconsistency has a substantial influence on purchase…"
Article 2: "While carrying out production or business activities, a business operator shall follow the principles of voluntariness, equality, fairness, and good faith, abide by laws and observe business ethics.
For the purpose of this law, unfair competition refers to any business operator's act of participating in the production and operation activities in violation of the provisions herein to disrupt the competition order in the market and infringe the legitimate rights and interests of other business operators or consumers."
Article 8: "A business operator shall not conduct commercial promotions for the performance, function, quality, sales status, user evaluation, honour received concerning its products in a false or misleading manner, attempting to cheat or mislead consumers."
The administrative agency responsible for false advertising and unfair competition is the local Administration for Market Regulation (AMR). The AMR has jurisdiction to take action against entities, grant quasi-injunctions and impose fines.
The general procedure and timeline for an administrative complaint are as follows:
If you have any questions on the points and practical tips discussed in this article, please contact Ivy Liang.
CECI NE CONSTITUE PAS UN AVIS JURIDIQUE. L'information qui est présentée dans le site Web sous quelque forme que ce soit est fournie à titre informatif uniquement. Elle ne constitue pas un avis juridique et ne devrait pas être interprétée comme tel. Aucun utilisateur ne devrait prendre ou négliger de prendre des décisions en se fiant uniquement à ces renseignements, ni ignorer les conseils juridiques d'un professionnel ou tarder à consulter un professionnel sur la base de ce qu'il a lu dans ce site Web. Les professionnels de Gowling WLG seront heureux de discuter avec l'utilisateur des différentes options possibles concernant certaines questions juridiques précises.