Dodgy duvet case put to bed with conviction
Pulling wool over people’s eyes has cost a Rotorua duvet importer a conviction and a fine.
Budge Collection and its sole director Sun Dong Kim were fined $71,250 by the Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to falsely claiming duvets Kim imported from China mainly contained alpaca wool.
The Commerce Commission said Kim was charging two retailers that cater mainly for tourists $185 for the duvets, which it said was about double the wholesale price of sheep wool duvets. But when the commission tested three duvets it found they contained less than 4 per cent alpaca fibre.
Judge Rob Ronayne said a ‘‘substantial increase’’ in penalty levels was required to reflect Parliament’s intention to ‘‘denounce and deter’’ such breaches of the Fair Trading Act.
He said the misrepresentations were ‘‘virtually impossible’’ for retailers or consumers to detect.
‘‘Consumers were plainly not in a position to check the composition of goods. In these circumstances, as with retail purchase, consumers place trust in the accuracy of representations. Here there was a breach of trust,’’ he said.
Commissioner Anna Rawlings said the type of offending of which Kim was convicted could impact on the industry by giving the country a ‘‘negative reputation’’.
It was the third case taken by the commission in recent months against companies making inaccurate claims about the composition and origin of cashmere and alpaca products, she said.
‘‘Alpaca duvets are marketed as being superior to wool duvets and we expect businesses to provide clear information about the products they are selling,’’ she said.
The commission said it has previously prosecuted nine companies and eight individuals for selling imported alpaca rugs as ‘‘Made in New Zealand’’, and for claiming duvets were predominantly alpaca or merino when they were not.
The most recent case was in May. Nangong Ltd and its owner Yun Qiang Hou were convicted and fined more than $109,000 after admitting to false claims that its duvets contained alpaca wool and were made in New Zealand.
The previous eight cases resulted in convictions and fines reaching a total of more than $1 million, the commission said.