Soon, oral care products may be included in China's cosmetics regulation. (Photo : Reuters)
Chinese authorities have fined the makers of popular U.S. toothpaste brand Crest with a record-breaking 6.03 million yuan ($694,200) over charges of false advertising, state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported Monday.
The fine, which was levied on Crest's manufacturer Procter & Gamble (P&G) in China, is said to mark the highest record of domestic punishment for such an act.
In an investigation made by Shanghai's Municipal Industrial and Commercial Bureau, the white teeth shown in Crest's advertisements for its whitening toothpaste was achieved via image processing software and not as an actual effect of the toothpaste.
Therefore, the ad was defined as false and should be fined accordingly, Miao Jun, an official in charge of the bureau's advertisement department, said in a statement.
Miao added that while using image manipulation techniques like those of Photoshop to touch up ad images is acceptable provided the retouched objects are irrelevant, the overuse of such methods on the subject being advertised is against the law.
"The severity of the punishment shows that Shanghai authorities have enhanced law enforcement and increased their power of exposure, which could effectively protect customers' rights," Su Haopeng, vice dean of the Law School at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said in an interview with the Global Times newspaper.
China's government watchdogs have recently stepped up scrutiny on both foreign and local firms across a wide range of industries, imposing harsher fines on companies it sees as conducting anti-monopolistic conduct. Earlier this year, Beijing issued a fine totaling 6.1 billion yuan on U.S. semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, the country's biggest antitrust case to date.
Although the P&G fine is smaller, analysts see the sanction as part of the Chinese government's efforts to better enforce consumer protection laws.
"I think the impact on Crest's market share will be very limited," said Gao Jianfeng, consumer analyst with Shanghai-based Bogo Consultants, noting that there was no suggestion made that the toothpaste could be harmful.
Crest said on its official Chinese microblog on Tuesday that the ad in question was pulled in the middle of 2014, and did not indicate any intent to contest the fine. P&G could not immediately be reached for comment.
