Bulgaria

[BG] Penalty for Misleading Advertising

IRIS 2012-1:1/12

Rayna Nikolova

New Bulgarian University

On 25 October 2011 the Bulgarian Commission on the Protection of Competition (Commission) found a violation of Art. 33, para. 2, item 1 in conjunction with Art. 32 of the Law on the Protection of Competition. The infringement was made by the Blizoo Media and Broadband company and the Commission imposed a penalty of BGN 30,379.00 (approximately EUR 15,000).

The reason for the proceedings was a consumer’s notice on misleading advertising messages of the company in connection with its “Complete Package”-offer. The package includes digital television with over 150 programmes, internet and fixed telephony services.

The proceeding showed that Blizoo has misled the consumers because it actually offered quite few television programmes. The Commission considered that a conscientious commercial practice requires the media company to ensure the quality and number of the programmes it offers as main features of its services.

Determining the penalty the Commission took into account the extent and duration of the violation and the limited scale of the advertising campaign. The Commission was guided by the idea that the penalty should be of a preventive nature against such fraudulent actions in future.