Pharma firm fined Rs150m for ‘deceptive’ marketing
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ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) on Thursday imposed a Rs150 million penalty on a pharmaceutical company for deceptive marketing and misleading advertising of one of its products.
The order, passed by a CCP bench comprising chairperson Rahat Kaunain Hassan and member Bushra Naz Malik, said that marketing claims by the pharmaceutical firm can potentially deceive consumers with respect to the characteristics, formulation and intended use of tablet Strepsils.
The commission said that the company’s marketing had deceived the general public into perceiving that Strepsils was still a medicated sore throat remedy.
The CCP’s inquiry concluded that the marketing campaign of the respondent appears to be deceptive in terms of Section 10 of the Competition Act in general, which prohibits distribution of false and misleading information to consumers.
The issue was brought to the CCP’s notice by M/s Square Distribution & Marketing System (Pvt) Limited through a formal complaint alleging that M/s Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan Limited had been disseminating misleading information to the consumers by creating an impression that its product Strepsils was a drug for sore throat and cough.
The complaint pointed out that Strepsils was de-registered as a drug when acquired by Reckitt from Boots in 2005, and then re-launched with the disclaimer, “Non-medicated Lozenges”.
“However, the company made no effort to educate and inform the consumers regarding the discontinuation of medicinal ingredient in it,” the complaint added. “The misleading campaign was also capable of harming the business interests of other undertakings.”
The CCP inquiry committee noted that efforts made by the company to inform the general public about change in the formula of Strepsils were inadequate.
“Barely printing ‘Non-Medicated Lozenges’ on the product box and that too in a very small font does not discharge the onus of making due and sufficient disclosures of such material change in the character of the product,” the inquiry committee had stated.
The CCP bench gave 40 days to the respondent, starting from the date of the order, for compliance with its directives.
Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2021
