Deceptive Marketing A Short Report By Abdul Ghani

By Abdul Ghani To Sir Atif-ud-din

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Acknowledgement I would first of all like to thank Allah for the strength, patience and perseverance without which I could never have completed this report. Then I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my teacher Atif-ud-din for providing me an opportunity to look in to this window of “Deceptive Marketing”. In fact, this report couldn’t have been without the assistance of online web sites, which provided me all type of assistance for completing this report and my own knowledge related to marketing which enhance as well. Regards, Abdul Ghani


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Table of Contents Definition of Deceptive marketing .............................................................................................. 4

Proof Requirement ...................................................................................................................... 5

Competition Policy Frame Work ................................................................................................. 6

False And Misleading Information Category ............................................................................... 7

Fraudulent Use of Any Other Company’s Shapes ........................................................................ 7

Fraudulent Use of Expression ...................................................................................................... 7

Affect Consumer ......................................................................................................................... 8

Order of CCP .............................................................................................................................. 9

Penalties And Appeals ................................................................................................................ 9

Violation of CCP Order .............................................................................................................. 9

Compensation ............................................................................................................................. 9

Focusing on Competition Policy.................................................................................................. 9

Dominant Position..................................................................................................................... 10

Consumer Protection ................................................................................................................. 10

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 11


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Deceptive Marketing

Any advertising or promotion that misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities or geographic origin of goods, services or commercial activities"


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Proof Requirement:

To establish that an advertisement is false, a plaintiff must prove five things:

(1) a false statement of fact has been made about the advertiser's own or another person's goods, services, or commercial activity;

(2) the statement either deceives or has the potential to deceive a substantial portion of its targeted audience;

(3) the deception is also likely to affect the purchasing decisions of its audience;

(4) the advertising involves goods or services in interstate commerce;

(5) the deception has either resulted in or is likely to result in injury to the plaintiff. The most heavily weighed factor is the advertisement's potential to injure a customer. The injury is usually attributed to money the consumer lost through a purchase that would not have been made had the advertisement not been misleading. False statements can be defined in two ways: those that are false on their face and those that are implicitly false


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Competition Policy Frame Work:

Competition Act, 2010 (CA ‘10) is part of the broader competition policy framework of the Government of Pakistan through which it endeavors to engender free competition in all spheres of commercial and economic activity. The crucial objective of CA ’10 is to enhance economic efficiency and to protect consumers from anti competitive behavior.

Briefly, the law prohibits situations which tend to lessen, distort or eliminate competition such as actions constituting an abuse of market dominance, competition restricting agreements and deceptive market practices. Although essentially an enabling law, it briefly sets out procedures relating to review of mergers and acquisitions, enquiries, imposition of penalties, grant of leniency and other essential aspects of law enforcement.


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The distribution of false and misleading information to the consumer including the distribution of information is lacking a reasonable basis, related to the:

Price

Character

Method (formula) of production

Place of production

Property

Suitability for use

Quality of good

without adequate disclosures,

failure to perform promised services, and failure to meet warranty obligations

Hidden charges

Fraudulent use of any other’s Shapes as look a live:

Trade mark

Firm’s name

Product labeling

Packaging

Fraudulent use of look alive expressions of:

Logo

Name

Font style

Trade mark

Product labeling

Packaging

The distribution of false or misleading information that is capable of harming the business interest of other undertaking companies. False or misleading comparison during advertising process.


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Affect Consumer: The representation, omission, or practice must be a "material" one. The basic question is whether the act or practice is likely to affect the consumer's conduct or decision with regard to a product or service. If so, the practice is material, and consumer injury is likely, because consumers are likely to have chosen differently but for the deception. In many instances, materiality, and hence injury, can be presumed from the nature of the practice. In other instances, evidence of materiality may be necessary. Most deception involves written or oral misrepresentations, or omissions of material information. Deception may also occur in other forms of conduct associated with a sales transaction. The entire advertisement, transaction or course of dealing will be considered. The issue is whether the act or practice is likely to mislead, rather than whether it causes actual deceptions. Of course, the Commission must find that a representation, omission, or practice occurred in cases of express claims, the representation itself establishes the meaning. In cases of implied claims, the Commission will often be able to determine meaning through an examination of the representation itself, including an evaluation of such factors as the entire document, the just a position of various phrases in the document, the nature of the claim, and the nature of the transactions. In other situations, the Commission will require extrinsic evidence that reasonable consumers reach the implied claims.8 In all instances, the Commission will carefully consider any extrinsic evidence that is introduced. Extrinsic evidence (ambiguity, vague, not clear, not mentioned)


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Order Of the Commission about deceptive marketing: The undertaking concerned to take action to restore the previous market conditions and not to repeat the prohibitions specified in section 10 like they have to do following measures after the CCP order:

Destruction of any goods having hazardous or harmful effects. Destroy the look alive expression. Logo, name, font, and more like this.

Penalties and appeals

If undertaking has been found in any activity prohibited under this act. Has failed to comply with an order of the commission made under this act. Has failed to deliver information as required. Has the reason to believe to be false Abuses during marketing activities like saying anything wrong about their competitor

during their marketing activities If represent wrongly to his competitor in their own advertisement and marketing

If the violation of the order of commission In case of violation of order of commission, may also direct the undertaking guilty of such violation shall be impose huge penalty as claim is suited. Compensation Undertaking has to compensate for any of loss or injury suffers by taking action on account of persuasion through false marketing activities.

Focusing on Competition Policy

While the competition law strives to ensure that the businesses behave in a reasonable manner to gain market power or to maximize their profits, competition policy has a much broader domain. It covers all the policies that may affect competition in any manner. Defectively designed government policies and regulations also lead to inefficient outcomes from a competition perspective. CPRD helps assess policies to identify interventions and actions that distort competition, such as laws, rules and procedures relating to various aspects of market entry, procurement, etc. The Commission strives to change and modify policies to enhance competition.


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Conducting Competition Impact Assessments

CPRD’s approach is primarily to look at various sectors from a competition standpoint and identify competition vulnerabilities, government interventions that may be distorting incentives, information failures and anti-competitive elements within the industry structure. Market studies serve as a diagnostic tool that enables CCP to evaluate as to how competitive the markets are, and work out steps to improve the state of competition in particular sectors. A wide range of competition issues are covered in the reports, including market dominance, entry barriers, the effect of international developments on the national market, and the regulatory mechanism. CCP’s competition assessments are based on extensive efforts to gather first-hand knowledge from relevant stakeholders so as to cover all the relevant aspects. The reports are of interest to policy makers in both the legislative and the executive branches. They are also beneficial to market players, investors, academia and students.

Dominant Position Dominant position of one having ability to behave appreciable extent independently of competitor, customers, consumers and suppliers and the position of undertaking will be presumed if its market share will exceeded from the 40% in the relevant market. Undertaking: Associated with CCP, Consumer Protection Although most false advertising claims brought against advertisers are by competitors, consumers can also file such claims. No hard-and-fast rules exist for all consumer-initiated cases; courts deal with claims brought by consumers on more of a case-by-case basis than they do with claims brought by competitors.


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Conclusion

There is not exactly decided compensation, penalties if someone suit filed against any company due to their deceptive marketing any of consumer or any other company harmful or injured yet

compensation will be according to the claim of company and consumers when justified.

Documents

Deceptive Marketing A Short Report By Abdul Ghani