Legal Alliance Succeeded in Unfair Competition Case regarding Dietary Supplements

In October «Legal Alliance» acted as a legal advisor to one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in case on law violation in the sphere of protection against unfair competition in the form of misleading information dissemination.

The pharmaceutical company published in its data materials and on the web-site the information regarding the properties of dietary supplements and their possible affect on the human body.

Having analyzed the contents of the relevant materials and information disseminated on the web-site, one of the territorial departments of Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine determined the certain signs of misleading information on the dietary supplements properties.

In view of the abovementioned, within the framework of legal support of the case Legal Alliance associatesanalyzed in detail all information components being published by pharmaceutical company for the compliance with applicable competition laws. Moreover, Legal Alliance estimated the possible impact of the specified information dissemination by pharmaceutical company on the whole market competition.

At the same time, according to the results of such estimation conducted by the lawyers team of Legal Alliance the mandatory action plan has been developed and successfully implemented by the Customer. Thus, upon recommendations the pharmaceutical company:

• Terminated information dissemination on the dietary supplements in the form that became a subject for Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine consideration;
• Implemented the draft of internal policy on the development and approval of promotional materials;
• Initiated the conduct of workshops for the companies’ employees regarding the development and dissemination procedures of promotional materials;
• Submitted all required explanations on the case and fulfilled complete cooperation with Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine department.

Upon the results of Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine assessment of the activities of pharmaceutical company regarding the dissemination of dietary supplements promotional materials, and taking into account all abovementioned Customers’ efforts and submitted explanations on the case, the pharmaceutical company was fined in the amount that appeared to be several times lower than the foreseen maximal fine.

The Customers interested were represented by the leading specialist in the sphere of antimonopoly and competition law, anticorruption compliance and business ethics Senior Associate of «Legal Alliance» - Lidiya Sangarovska-Gurlach.