ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has imposed a penalty of Rs40 million on Al-Ghazi Tractors Limited (AGTL) over misleading advertisement claiming that its new tractor models offered up to 30% extra diesel savings.
A two-member bench of CCP comprising Dr Kabir Ahmed Sidhu (Chairman) and Salman Amin (Member) announced the ruling, stating that the company made false claims in an advertisement published on January 24, 2002.
The tractor manufacturing company had claimed that its Holland tractor models offered “up to 30 percent extra diesel savings compared to any competitor’s tractors.”
The false claims were widely circulated in media and the company also referenced a report by the Agriculture Mechanization Research Institute (AMRI), Multan, in a bid to to make the claims credible.
However, the Commission found in its investigation that the institute had never endorsed the claim of fuel savings by the Al-Ghazi tractors.
More than 60% of population in Pakistan relies on agriculture sector in different forms and such deceptive claims about tractors, which are widely used in this sector, can cause financial losses to the farmers.
The claim of up to 30% fuel saving could mean savings of thousands of rupees while no such advantage is existed so far.
The investigation was launched against the company after receiving complaints from stakeholders.
The CCP maintained that the AMRI report only compared AGTL tractors to those of Millat Tractors in limited settings.
