Intellectual Property Law

Deceptive Trade Descriptions and False or Misleading Statement in Advertising under Ireland's Consumer Information Act 1978

By IBLS Editor

E-Commerce has revived consumer protection laws relevance. Understandably, consumer protection must be invigorated in a medium built upon advertisement and consumer trust such as the Internet.  Most countries, such as Ireland, apply traditional consumer protection and advertising laws to e-commerce transactions. Ireland's Consumer Information Act 1978 contains rules against deceptive advertisement practices. This article particularly addresses Ireland's prohibition against deceptive trade descriptions and false or misleading statements in advertisement.  

Ireland has two main consumer protection laws: the UK Trade Descriptions Act -equally applied in Ireland- and the Consumer Information Act 1978.  The UK Description Act is a more general law that prohibits certain types of misleading advertisements about products, services, accommodations, and facilities. The Consumer Information Act 1978 (Information Act), also prohibits misleading advertisement about products, services, land, accommodations, and facilities, but is more specific because it prohibits advertisement that is "likely to mislead" and cause loss, damage, or injury to the public.

Section 5 of the Information Act deals with deceptive trade description in Ireland; this section states that when an advertisement refers to a trade description related to any class of goods, the trade description shall be taken as referring to all goods of that class, even if not in existence at the time of the advertisement.  Also, § 6 states that it is an offense if a person, in the course of a trade, business or profession, makes a false statement knowing that it is false or recklessly makes a false statement about the provision of trade, business or profession, the nature, effect or fitness for purpose of any service, accommodation or facility provided in the course of trade, business or profession. For purposes of application of § 6, any person that makes false statements is considered to make them recklessly, unless that person has adequate reasons to believe his or her statement was true.  False means: "false to a material degree."

In the Ireland case of MFI Warehouses v. Natrass 157, the court held that the term recklessly does not imply dishonestly. Thus, prosecutors do not need to show that defendants totally and intentionally disregarded the truth, but that they did not care about the truth or falsity of their statements.  In this case, a mail order company's advertisement was not careful enough as to being reckless about its content.

Section 7 states that it is an offense to provide false or misleading information about the price of goods, services, or accommodations.

Full post as published by IBLS Internet Law Blog on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).