On June 7, 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the cassation appeal of PrJSC VF Ukraine, operating under the Vodafone brand, against the decision of the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal and the decision of the Kyiv Commercial Court, which dismissed the company’s claim to invalidate and cancel the Committee’s decision of 23.12.2021 No. 715-p.
As a reminder, in 2021, the Committee’s decision recognized the dissemination of the mobile operator’s promotional campaign “Catch money in your smartphone. Buy a promotional smartphone and get UAH 100 to your bonus account”, “Buy a smartphone – get up to UAH 1000 for 4G Internet”, “Cashback up to UAH 1000 for communication to all smartphones” and “Buy a smartphone – get a discount of up to UAH 1000 for 4G Internet” misleading information by communicating to an indefinite number of persons false information about the accrual of discounts/cashback in the form of cash and incomplete and inaccurate information due to the omission of certain facts.
Violations
In particular, the operator did not provide information about automatic deductions of bonus funds for subscription fees and other additional services according to the chosen tariff plan, did not warn about the obligation to connect to certain tariff plans to activate the promotions: “Gifts for loved ones”, “Cashback for smartphones”, “Powerful smartphone from Vodafone”, during which the following statements were spread:
“Buy a smartphone and get up to UAH 1000 for 4G Internet”,
“Cashback up to UAH 1000 for communication to all smartphones”,
“Buy a smartphone and get a discount of up to UAH 1000 on 4G Internet”.
Vodafone also did not warn about the ban on changing tariff plans. Such actions of the company could have influenced the intentions of a certain number of persons to purchase goods and services of PJSC VF Ukraine. Accordingly, the Committee recognized them as a violation of the law and imposed a fine of UAH 1,760,749.00 on the defendant.
