2 February 2021, Budapest – In order to prevent damage to consumers, the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) has temporarily prohibited the promotion of the BrightWhite home teeth whitening system and ordered the publication of a corrective statement on the social media sites of the influencers advertising the product.
The GVH initiated a competition supervision proceeding against the distributors of the BrightWhite home teeth withering product family at the end of last year due to allegations that their advertising practices were misleading for consumers for multiple reasons. The records of the National Center for Public Health show the products to have been banned from the market since their documentation is incomplete, thus the possibility that they contain materials prohibited under the industrial standards of the EU cannot be excluded. Therefore, the GVH suspects that the teeth whitening products cannot legally be promoted.
During the proceeding, the GVH was faced with the fact that the product is actively being promoted even months after the final and enforceable official ban by the public health authority, meaning that it continues to endanger a large number of consumers. Therefore, as an interim measure, the GVH decided to prohibit the commercial practice until the proceeding has been concluded.
The interim measure ordered by the GVH obliged the undertakings distributing the BrightWhite home teeth whitening system as well as the advertisement publishers to cease promoting the product family. In addition, the GVH ordered the involved intermediaries to publish a corrective statement on the social media channels of the influencers who participated in the promotion of the product after its sale was banned.
The official registration number of the case is: VJ/45/2020.
GVH Press Office