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Vodafone New Zealand Fined For Fair Trading Act Breaches
Published on:
Fines imposed against Vodafone New Zealand for breaches of the Fair Trading Act have reached NZ$1.5 million (US$1.2 million). Vodafone was sentenced in the Auckland District Court today on 21 charges brought by the Commerce Commission over marketing campaigns that breached the Fair Trading Act.
Vodafone was fined $960,000 today in addition to fines of almost $500,000 imposed in 2011 for six other Fair Trading Act charges. Total penalties paid by Vodafone are $1,444,275 -- the highest ever imposed on a single defendant under the Fair Trading Act.
Today's charges were in relation to advertising campaigns run by Vodafone from October 2006 - February 2009 for various broadband and mobile phone promotions including Broadband everywhere, Supa Prepay Connection Pack and Largest 3G Network.
In sentencing Vodafone, Judge Harvey described the conduct as "gross carelessness". He commented in relation to Vodafone's Broadband Everywhere campaign that it was "clearly false and misleading" and that it had done "significant harm". Judge Harvey also noted that in relation to the Supa Prepay charges, Vodafone had not acted on concerns raised with the level of seriousness required, even though it had the technology and resources to do so.
"Prior to the Commission bringing charges against Vodafone in 2009, we had a significant number of public complaints about Vodafone's various mobile phone and mobile broadband advertising campaigns. At the time, mobile data and phone packages were relatively new to the market. Customers have no easy way of verifying the claims being made for products like this. This case reinforces that companies need to be especially careful that their marketing materials for new products are not likely to mislead," said the Commerce Commission's Competition Manager, Stuart Wallace.
Tags: [vodafone] [New Zealand]
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