Introduction

If traders are to compete in a fair market, it is important to ensure that there are comprehensive and effective controls over both misleading and comparative advertising.

This chapter looks at the current controls over misleading advertising as it affects business purchasers and, also, at the latest legal controls over comparative advertising whereby traders are permitted to include reference to competitors in their advertisements subject to satisfying certain controls.

Section 2 includes a brief background to the issue of misleading and comparative advertising and details the genesis of the current provisions. Section 3 considers the controls over misleading advertisements including: the remit of the controls and the situations that they are designed to cover, and the definition of the phrase ‘misleading advertisements’ and the criteria upon which it depends.

Section 4 considers the new controls over comparative advertising and addresses: the remit of the controls and the criteria that must be satisfied if a comparative advertisement is to be legal. Section 5 considers the prohibition of misleading or comparative advertising by code owners.