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THE HIGH COURT has ruled that a Dunnes Stores advertising campaign comparing product prices with rival chain Aldi was likely to mislead customers.
Advertisements claiming that certain Dunnes own-brand goods were cheaper than Aldi equivalents amounted to a violation of EU legislation and customer protection law, Mr Justice Brian Cregan said.
False information
He found that 14 out of 15 Dunnes pricing labels had included false information about their nature, composition or ingredients.
The labels in question involved products including sausages, turkey breast mince, yoghurts, toilet paper, tomato ketchup, tinned beef and dry cat food.
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The judge also said that the advertisements has not objectively compared products intended for the same purpose.
Such information “would be likely to cause the average consumer to make a transactional decision, which that consumer would not otherwise make,” he concluded.
Lower prices
Aldi had claimed that Dunnes infringed consumer legislation by displaying misleading banners in supermarkets in Cork , Kerry, Kildare, Louth, Offaly and Waterford during October and November 2013.
The slogans on display included the words ”lower price guarantee”, “guaranteed lower prices on all your family essentials every week” and “Aldi match”.
The case was today adjourned for two weeks to allow both sides to consider its ruling.
In a statement this afternoon, Aldi welcomed the judgement and said it “further underscores customers’ entitlement to clear, transparent and accurate information in comparative advertising to help them make properly informed decisions about what they buy.”
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@waffler
Speak for yourself. If I see an article about a missing I child I will always read it. And so will every other decent human being. Keep up the good work The Journal.
if the journal keeps reporting every time a kid has a row with their parents people will stop reading these articles and the genuinely serious cases will be ignored. ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?
Every single child is important regardless of reasons why they are missing, and if your the sort of person that will lose interest because there may be a bit more than you can be bothered to read then I think you need to change your way of thinking. Who knows what could happen to a child even If they do run once they are out there on their own. God where has all the decent people gone in this country. It’s all come about money greed and jealousy.
I agree on the vital importance of publicising any missing child (or missing person, for that matter), and I commend this publication for doing so. However, it is necessary to give closure to stories that have closure; particularly where it is a positive outcome. It must be reported where the person was found, what condition they were in, and what the circumstances of their apparent disappearance was. To simply state that the child was found is neither acceptable nor balanced coverage.
Journal staff need to work on writing skills… everyday there is an example of bad journalistic skills. As a reader, I want to know what happened to the kid while he was missing and etc
No it doesn’t just proves there are more sad nosey selfish inconsiderate people about. It’s good news for god sake very good news something we don’t hear alot of.
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