Search results : 1510

After several decades in which the national broadcaster, RTE, enjoyed a monopoly of the airwaves and up to 80-90 unlicensed "pirate" radio stations played cat-and-mouse with the law, a system for licensed commercial broadcasting was finally introduced in Ireland in 1988 under the Radio and Television Act of that year. The Act established the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC), which was to enter into contracts for the provision of independent private commercial radio and television broadcasting on a national and local level, as well as community and special interest broadcasting...

In a decision of 20 March 1997 the Court of Appeal in Aix-en-Provence has severely reminded the company E. Leclerc of the conditions for the legality of comparative advertising. Without notifying its direct competitor Carrefour , the company had issued posters showing two shopping trolleys filled with foodstuffs bearing the labels E. Leclerc and Carrefour . The second, which was much smaller than the first, was marked "E. Leclerc cheaper than Carrefour Vitrolles" and "prices for first quarter 93". The Court of Appeal, upholding the judgment of the court of first instance, penalised the failure...

In two appeal judgements given at the end of April, the Federal Court in Karlsruhe ruled that publication of lists of "top professionals" by news magazines constituted unfair competition, thus upholding the judgements previously given by the Munich Court of Appeal. The magazine, "Focus", had run a series of articles on doctors and lawyers in Germany and had used criteria such as "reputation among colleagues" and "membership of expert bodies" to produce lists of the "500 best doctors" and "500 best lawyers". The court saw this as harmful to other members of these professions, since claims that...

On Tuesday the 16th of September the European Parliament urged the governments of the Member States as well as the advertising industry to take a strong and decisive position against advertisements presenting offensive or degrading stereotypes of women. The European Parliament expressed the necessity that the Member States should take all the steps needed in order to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in the advertising. In the opinion of the European deputies both pornography and other forms of degrading portrayals of women can contribute to violence against women and to the enduring...

A year ago, the Commission published a Green Paper on "Commercial Communications in the Internal Market", in which it made suggestions on removing obstacles which discrepancies between the laws of different countries created for trade in the field of transfrontier commercial communications (see IRIS 1997-5: 6). The term "commercial communications" covers all forms of advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship, sales promotion and public relations promoting products and services. The Green Paper stressed that the development of new information society services might well make for additional trade...