Newsletter
CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR MIS-LEADING ADVERTISING
It is well established in practice that misleading advertising may constitute criminal fraud. But it is unclear whether making a false statement in an advertisement is also an offense under Article 215 of the Penal Code, which provides that a person engaged in business activities who knowingly makes a false statement in a docu-ment made in the course of business, sufficient to harm the public or other persons, is punishable by up to three years' imprisonment or detention, or a fine of up to NT$1,500.
In a 2003 judgment, the Taiwan High Court held that making a false statement in advertising is not an offense under Article 215 of the Penal Code on the grounds that a document "made in the course of business" meant a document whose production was intimately connected with the business activity concerned, and which could not be made other than in the course of business; that an advertisement was not a document that was necessary to make in the course of business, nor was it one that could be made only in the course of business; and that, therefore, even if an ad-vertisement was untruthful, this did not consti-tute an offense under said Article 215.