Newsletter
CONTROLLED ALLOCATION OF PRESS ADVERTISING SPACE FOR FILMS VIOLATES FTL
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has deter-mined that the practice of the Motion Picture Association of Taipei and the Taipei Motion Picture Dealers Association in restricting the rates charged for and space allocated to media advertising of cinema films constitutes concerted action in restraint of competition. The FTC imposed fines on both organizations.
The FTC states that since 1993 the Film Adver-tising Committee constituted by the two asso-ciations has repeatedly restricted the rates charged for film advertising. During the period in question, several newspapers sought to in-crease their advertising rates, but each was sanctioned by joint withdrawal of advertising. Further, on the grounds of fair allocation of ad-vertising space, the committee decided to restrict advertising space for any individual film ac-cording to the number of cinemas at which it was to be shown, and forced staff from various newspapers to work at the committee's premises, in order to control the advertizing activities.
The FTC states that the above actions restrained the trading freedom of newspapers, adversely affected the market mechanism of supply and demand with regard to film advertising, and, in particular, requiring newspaper employees to work at the committee's premises and controlling the allocation of advertising space, contravened Article 14 of the Fair Trade Law (FTL), which prohibits concerted actions. Therefore, the asso-ciations were fined and ordered to cease such concerted action.