Shops plead guilty to breaking sales pricing legislation

Three retailers have pleaded guilty to sales pricing breaches at Dublin District Court.

Lifestyle Sports (Ireland), DID Electrical Appliances, and Rathwood Home & Garden World were ordered to pay €1,000 each to the Little Flower Penny Dinners charity and to pay the costs of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), which brought the prosecutions.

The prosecutions were brought following online sweeps conducted over the 2023-2024 winter sales season, including Black Friday.

These are the first prosecutions under new sales pricing legislation introduced in 2022.

The new law requires traders to base any discount on the lowest price in at least the previous 30 days, and to display this price clearly on any price tag or advertisement.

The CCPC said a number of other traders have been investigated and further prosecutions may follow.

The maximum fine per offence is €5,000 but the CCPC said changes to the law are needed to give it the power to impose large fines for serious offences – for example, fines that are a percentage of a business’s turnover.

The CCPC said this is a priority for it.

Commenting on the prosecutions, CCPC Chair Brian McHugh said: “Misleading sale discounts harm consumers and harm competition. It is vital that traders are transparent with consumers, displaying prices clearly and accurately.

“Businesses must be able to compete openly and honestly, and consumers must be able to shop with confidence.”

DID was ordered to pay €2,460 in costs to the CCPC, Lifestyle was ordered to pay €3,567, while Rathwood was ordered to pay €3,444.