OTTAWA – The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ordered Rogers Communications to pay an administrative monetary penalty of $500,000 as part of a suit between the wireless company and the Competition Bureau over misleading advertising.
As Cartt.ca readers will recall, the Bureau launched legal proceedings against Rogers in 2010 claiming that its ads for its new low cost flanker brand Chatr made misleading claims about dropped calls, and that those claims were not based on adequate and proper tests. But the court eventually sided with Rogers and threw out the Bureau’s petition.
This week, the Court rejected Rogers’ argument that it had exercised due diligence prior to making performance claims about the dropped call rates for Chatr and directed it to pay the $500,000 AMP. The Court also concluded that it was not necessary to impose an order against Rogers prohibiting it from engaging in similar conduct in the future.
"While we are pleased that the Court recognized that Rogers did not exercise due diligence in making its performance claims, we are examining the modest amount of the penalty imposed and the decision not to issue a prohibition order,”said Competition Commissioner John Pecman, in a statement. “The Bureau will take the time necessary to review the Court’s reasons in order to make a determination as to next steps."
Rogers acknowledged that certain testing should have been completed before any of the ads were published, but noted that the testing did confirm its assertions that Rogers’ network had fewer dropped calls than its competitors.
“We are pleased that the Court rejected the Competition Bureau's claims about Chatr advertising”, Rogers said in its statement. “The Court rejected the Competition Bureau's efforts to obtain a $7 million penalty and also refused to issue a Prohibition Order. The Court found that virtually every allegation made was false and unfounded.
We were shocked and surprised the Competition Bureau tried to levy such a significant and unwarranted fine. This was the first time in the world where a regulator applied to fine a company for truthful, factual advertising.
We remain committed to meeting the highest possible standards of accuracy and clarity in all of our ads."
