By Constantinos Psillides
LIDL Cyprus will be forced to pay €20,000 after it violated fair trade practices, the Competition and Consumer Protection Service (CCPS) announced on Tuesday.
According to a statement issued by CCPS – which is a department of the Commerce ministry – Lidl violated fair trade practices by advertising offers on lamb during the Easter holidays but failing to provide its stores with sufficient quantities of meat to meet the expected demand.
In a report CCSP head Pambos Charalambous said that between April 14 and April 19, Lidl stores in Cyprus advertised a sale on lamb, a meat heavily consumed during the Easter holidays. Lidl said in its advertisements that lamb meat for souvla was available for €4.44 per kilo and lamb chops for €4.99 per kilo.
CCSP said the price was considered extremely low as the average price for lamb at the time was €6.89 per kilo. In some instances, Lidl prices were half of those of other supermarkets.
Charalambous wrote that his department received a large number of complaints from consumers, saying that Lidl stores all over the island were out of the meat less than 20 minutes after opening.
The high number of complaints sparked an investigation by CCSP officials, who visited Lidl stores to check for themselves whether the complaints had merit.
CCSP on-site investigations concluded that Lidl stores were indeed stocked with insufficient amounts of advertised meat.
“The law states that an invitation to buy a product must be accompanied by a disclaimer saying that the company might not be able to meet demand, if such a possibility exists. Failure to do so results in turning the advertisement into ‘bait’, so consumers can visit the store, which constitutes a violation of fair trade practices,” Charalambous wrote, adding that Lidl was legally obliged to inform consumers on their limited stock.
“A sign posted at every Lidl store saying that the stock was depleted, cannot in any circumstance be considered as adequately informing the public in general, since the company should have done so before and nor after they ran out stock,” he said.
Charalambous asserted that Lidl managers should have anticipated the demand and taken the necessary measures.
Asked to justify their practices, Lidl told the CCSP in July that they were overwhelmed by the demand, pointing out that they had imported seven times the amount of meat they usually do to meet that demand but in the end failed to exactly predict the surge of consumers.
CCSP wasn’t satisfied with Charalambous writing the fact that the stock ran out within 15 minutes indicated that Lidl did not do enough to prepare for the expected demand.
In announcing the €20,000 fine Charalambous said his department took into consideration some mitigating circumstances – the fact that Lidl has a “clean record” when it came to trade practices in Cyprus as well as the fact that they fully cooperated with authorities.
The Lidl fine comes after a similar case in Greece, where the Greek Consumer and Protection Agency two weeks ago fined Lidl Greece €150,000 for misleading consumers.
