Paris (AFP) – German supermarket chain Lidl faces a 43-million-euro ($50 million) payout to a French rival after an appeals court ruled its ads to be deceptive. The Paris appeals court ordered Lidl to pay the amount to French chain Intermarche after finding hundreds of the television spots that it ran between 2017 and 2023 were likely to deceive consumers and amounted to unfair competition.
While Intermarche lost the original trial in 2022, the appeals court considered in its July 4 ruling that Lidl’s ads were deceptive as the hard discount retailer had not ensured the items it promoted were available in all of its shops at the advertised price for a period of 15 weeks. The appeals court judge found that in the more than 370 ads contested by Intermarche, Lidl had prominently featured the products and prices but had used small print or brief off-screen voice mentions to direct consumers to its website for participating stores.
The court ruled those mentions were “likely to go unnoticed by the consumer or at the very least be misunderstood.” Moreover, it considered that by knowing it didn’t have the products available at all sites for a sufficient time, Lidl’s actions went from being deceptive practices to unfair competition, thus opening the way for compensation to its rival. Lidl said it would appeal the latest ruling, while Intermarche declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
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