During its session held today, the Armenian State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition fined with 500,000 drams ($1,356 US) the Fresh supermarket chain for misinforming the consumers and violating the advertisement terms.  

The Commission had launched proceedings against Fresh on the basis of Iravunk newspaper’s May 21, 2010 publication that the supermarket chain was advertising a special sale whereby 3 kiwis were to be on sale for 375 drams ($1.02), but they were actually being sold for 510 drams ($1.38). According to Iravunk’s news article, the violation of advertisement terms is widespread at Fresh.   

At the session of the Commission, Fresh supermarket’s accountant Hovhannes Baljyan ruled out the occurrence of such incident, and said that the citizen who had discovered the violation should have applied to the manager, at first, and try to regulate the problem in that manner. The consumer who had purchased the kiwi, however, had presented the sales receipt and the list of items, which corroborate the high-price sale of the kiwis.

Since this incident had taken place in 2010, Fresh was fined pursuant to the former law on competition, which requires a fine of 500,000 drams. But as stated by the new law, in the case of such violations the Commission is now authorized to demand much higher fines.