ISLAMABAD: The Comp­etition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has imposed a penalty of Rs5 million on the University of Management and Technology (UMT) for making false claims about its ranking and accreditation.

The CCP conducted an inquiry to ascertain whether the university had violated the competition law, and it was concluded that the UMT had made deceptive claims in its prospectus and other promotional material just to make profits by luring students into taking admission to the university.

Some of the false claims were: “[Among the] Top 10 in South Asia and best accredited in Pakistan”, “UMT School of Business and Economics (SBE) is the only business school in Pakistan that has SAQS Accreditation by the Association of Management Development Institutions in South Asia”, and “UMT is also at the top as per HEC ranking in the General Category (medium sized) of private sector institutions in Punjab in a row since last year”.

The CCP has said that misleading and deceptive claims have jeopardised the future of thousands of students and caused financial losses to their parents.

The CCP prosecutor referred to a similar example from the US where a federal judge finalised $25 million settlement between President Trump and students of his now closed Trump University for making false claims regarding its status.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2019