Fujitsu General New Zealand Limited is the first business to be
convicted and fined under the unsubstantiated representations
provisions in the Fair Trading Act, which came into force in June
2014.
Under the Fair Trading Act a business must not make
representations about its products or services if it does not have
reasonable grounds for the representations when they were made.
More information about these requirements can be found here:
Consumer law reform: unsubstantiated representations.
Fujitsu pleaded guilty to seven charges under the Fair Trading
Act for unsubstantiated representations made between June 2014 and
October 2016 and was fined $310,000. On its website and in
promotional materials, Fujitsu claimed that its heat pumps were
"NZ's most energy efficient heat pump range" and that
a particular range provided "better heat efficiency" and
was "the most efficient system ever". Fujitsu accepted
that it had no reasonable grounds to make these claims.
