ISLAMABAD: The Competition Comm­ission of Pakistan (CCP) on Tuesday imposed a penalty of Rs10 million on Colgate-Palmolive Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd for running a deceptive marketing campaign for one of its products — Max All Purpose Cleaner (Max APC) — in violation of Section 10 of the Competition Act, 2010.

The complaint against the advertisement was filed by Colgate-Palmolive’s main competitor Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan Ltd which maintained that the marketing campaign run by the former for Max APC was making deceptive/false claims.

Reckitt Benckiser, which produces Dettol, a competing product to Max APC, complained that Colgate-Palmolive had issued a trade letter to discredit its product with comparative claims, thus harming its business interests.

The CCP conducted an inquiry into the matter and issued a show-cause notice to Colgate-Palmolive on the recommendations of the inquiry report.

During the hearings, a bench comprising CCP Chairperson Vadiyya Khalil and Member Ikram Ul Haque Qureshi found four specific claims made by Colgate-Palmolive to be “false and misleading”, and capable of “harming the business interests” of its competitors.

The bench imposed a penalty of Rs10m on Colgate-Palmolive for violating Section 10 of the Competition Act, and directed the company to suitably modify its claims relating to Max APC and omit any misleading comparisons from its trade letter.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2017