I have received an interesting letter from solicitors acting on behalf of European City Guide, saying that a press release I put out last year (click here to view) was inaccurate and wanting me to change it. Now, I can't change it retroactively, but did say I would be happy to elaborate on the point they raised.

The solicitors claim their client "European City Guide" was not fined by the Spanish authorities for misleading advertising practices.

Hmmm! That will be news to the Advertising Standards Authority and to the European Advertising Standards Alliance, both of whom have articles on their websites
about ECG.

Briefly, the complaints about ECG refer to a form they send unsolicited to companies, offering to advertise their services. There is a section on the form called "request order" which appears to be a request to find out more about the offer and ECG services. However, the devil is in the detail - the mailing gives the impression that the directory entries are free and did not make clear that signing and returning the mailing, even merely to correct an address or give the information about the type of business activity, would commit recipients to paying for three entries and a copy of the advertisers' directory, totalling hundreds of pounds.

As to the solicitor's complaint, let me just point out:

1999 - Catalan authorities (Generalitat) open a file against ECG

2001 - Generalitat rule ECG form misleading and impose fine. ECG appeal against fine.

2002 - Court of First Instance in Barcelona rejects appeal and confirms the previous administrative decision. ECG appeals against this decision.

2003 - the Superior Court in Catalonia rules a new sentence, fully confirming the previous one. ECG appeals against this decision.

The aforementioned rulings and judicial sentances refer to the first ECG form, circulated in 1998 and 1999. It was slightly different to the one circulated in 2000 and 2001. The Catalan authorities opened a new file relating to the 2000/2001 form and in 2002 issued a decision in which this new form was also considered to be misleading. ECG appealed against this decision before the Barcelona Courts and a new sentence was issued.

September 2003 the Court of First Instance in Barcelona issued a ruling confirming the second ruling of the Catalan statutory authorities.

The court also confirmed the fine of nearly 30,000 euro imposed on ECG by the Generalitat.

Finally, the Catalan authorities investigated a third ECG form which was circulated in 2001-2, launching an investigation on the basis of more than 1,500 complaints.

September 2003 saw the Catalan authorities (Generalitat) issued its decision that this ECG form too was misleading, and imposing two sanctions on ECG: a fine of 300,000 euro and an order to cease trading for one year.

ECG have appealed this decision. This means that both sanctions are temporarily suspended until the courts have heard the appeal. Although this appeal will have to be considered by the courts, there have beenthree administrative decisions and three judicial rulings on this case, all of them finding that ECG has acted in such a way as to intentionally mislead companies. So now we will wait and see whether this latest appeal produces a different result from all the previous ones.

Meanwhile, I would not recommend anyone to respond to their mailings, let alone give them any money.

Click here for my speech in the European Parliament on this matter.