The Supreme Court judgement from October 18, 2012 dealt with the issue of ‘prizes’ offered by traders to consumers from the point of view of guidelines on forbidden practices.

The Court concluded that practices which give a false impression of the consumer winning a prize, although they must still spend some money or they incur some other expenses, are forbidden.

Thus, no expenses of the consumer may be connected with the prize, should that involve, for example, making a phone call to a paid number to confirm the prize or obtain more information or covering the postage related to sending the prize to the winner. If the consumer is expected to collect the prize at a set place (for example, the special hand-over ceremony at the trader’s registered office), the trader must reimburse the consumer’s travel expenses to such place. It is immaterial that expenses imposed on the consumer are minor compared to the prize value or they do not present any profit for the trader.

The fact that the trader informs the consumer about all expenses related to the prize in advance does not affect the conclusion about such practices being forbidden. The Court conclusion is unambiguous, the guidelines on unfair trading practices make it forbidden for the consumer to have to spend money or incur expenses in order to obtain the prize.

Furthermore, the Court ruled that if the Consumer can select from several methods of gaining the prize, all such methods must be free-of-charge. The moment there is an expense related to one of these methods occurring on the consumer’s part, it becomes forbidden practice, even if the winner had the possibility to gain the prize free-of-charge too.

When providing consumers with the prizes, it is therefore imperative to bear in mind that there must be no expenses by the consumer related to gaining the prize, otherwise it constitutes unfair trading behaviour.