Marketers should be cautious over the interpretation of adverts describing goods and services following a court ruling.
A ruling over Asda’s use of words in its advertising could open the floodgates for more litigation, warns intellectual property law firm Kempner & Partners as companies can now sue over the meaning of words following a case brought against Asda by Ajinomoto Sweeteners Europe.
Asda has introduced a minimum price on alcohol and declared to the Government it wants to play a leading role in tackling alcohol misuse in the UK.
It introduced its new policy, which sets a floor price of duty plus VAT on over 99% of the alcohol it sells.
The coalition government plans to introduce a law banning below-cost sales of alcohol within the next 18 months as set out in the Bill, published on the 10 Downing Street website.
But reacting to the plan, the British Retail Consortium said below-cost selling is: “Simply not the widespread practice portrayed and defining it is a complex issue. If the government is determined to pursue legislation we would want to ensure it applies sensibly and bears in mind the impact on the vast majority of consumers who buy and drink alcohol responsibly.”
The Conservative Party is proposing to swap the system of using units to tell consumers how much alcohol drinks contain for one focused on the metric volume of alcohol and calorie content.
The party plans to negotiate a voluntary agreement with the drinks industry should it come to power this year, as part of its health manifesto laid out by shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley.
The relaxing of product placement rules for television could undermine controls on alcohol marketing in the UK, according to the Portman Group.
Government plans to outlaw ‘all-you-can-drink’ offers, and more Licensees are facing the prospect of another new raft of tough measures after government plans for a new mandatory code of practice for the drinks industry were confirmed today.
A ban on ‘all-you-can-drink’ promotions and offers that only apply to certain groups, such as women, are among the proposals included in the Policing and Crime Bill unveiled in the Queen’s Speech. This is in addition to a new £4.5m crackdown on alcohol-fuelled crime and disorder. Other potential measures include forcing pubs to have the minimum sized glasses available for those who want them, making sure customers see the unit content of all drinks they buy and checking staff are properly trained. But there is no direct mention of a ban on happy hours.
The age at which people can buy alcohol in Scotland is to be raised to 21 in an effort to curb binge-drinking. The Scottish government has also announced plans to introduce a minimum price for alcohol and to ban buy-one-get-one-free drink promotions in supermarkets to discourage drinking and to cut anti-social behaviour.
Source: Sunday Times 15-06-2008
New legislation from the government will force pubs, clubs and even supermarkets to pay for extra police in areas highly affected by alcohol-fuelled yob culture. Alcohol-related violence costs Britain around £7.3 billion a year.
Source: Daily Mirror 05-06-2008
An update from the Institute of Sales Promotion on the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and its implementation into UK law as new Regulations on May 26th
As reported in previous ISP legal bulletins, the ISP is of the view that, on a strict interpretation of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations which come into force on May 26th, 2008, there are severe limitations on the use of the word “free”.