Court Rejects Competition Bureau's Attempt to Levy Significant Fine and Agrees Chatr Advertisements Were True and Accurate

TORONTO, Feb. 24, 2014 /CNW/ - Rogers Communications issued the following statement today in response to a Decision released by the Ontario Court of Justice concerning the Competition Bureau's misleading advertising case:

"We are pleased that the Court rejected the Competition Bureau's claims about Chatr advertising. The Court rejected the Competition Bureau's efforts to obtain a $7 million penalty and also refused to issue a Prohibition Order.  The Court found that virtually every allegation made was false and unfounded.

We were shocked and surprised the Competition Bureau tried to levy such a significant and unwarranted fine. This was the first time in the world where a regulator applied to fine a company for truthful, factual advertising.

The Court emphasized that extensive testing conducted by Rogers demonstrated that Chatr's ads were true and correct. It did find that certain testing should have been completed by Rogers before any of the ads were published and therefore imposed a modest penalty of $500,000. All testing was completed shortly after the ads began and confirmed that Rogers network had fewer dropped calls than our competitors.

We remain committed to meeting the highest possible standards of accuracy and clarity in all of our ads."

SOURCE: Rogers Communications Inc.

Jennifer Kett, Rogers Communications, [email protected]