The days of the European City Guide (ECG) publishing scam could now be numbered following recent actions taken at EU level and by national courts.

Way back in 2003, the ECG was ordered to close for one year and fined €300,000 for misleading advertising by the government of Catalonia. However, those behind the ECG have stubbornly refused to obey this ruling, conducting a number of appeals and continuing with their bogus operations. I have learnt that the High Court of Justice of Catalonia has now rejected the ECG's appeal.

The Consumer Protection Cooperation regulation, which was transposed into EU law by the Member States in January, will see public enforcement authorities from the Member States working together to tackle cross-border scams and systematic abuses of EU consumer protection rules.

More recently, I reported here about the court judgement against Construct Data Verlag (CDV) in Vienna, where CDV agreed to stop sending their misleading "Fair Guide" business directory, which invited customers to verify the company details already printed on an attached form and to sign the response. By signing the form the respondent automatically and unwittingly placed an order which (CDV) then chased payment for.

Lastly, in March, the ECG was condemned by the Brussels Criminal court on the legal grounds of misleading advertising against the practice of business. Although the court did not order ECG to close, it imposed a fine of €275,000 on ECG which was also instructed to reimburse victims.

Although those behind the ECG seem determined to continue with these shameless scams by creating a number of offshoot bogus publishers (including CDV, Novachannel and DAD Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH), these recent developments will beef up the powers of police and public authorities and show that courts are consistently coming down hard on the ECG.