The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on March 13 that it will impose fines of 406 million won and 11 million won on Amway Korea and Gate Vision, respectively, on charges of violating the law on marking and advertising.
Amway Korea is suspected of selling its air purifier "Atmosphere" from February 2014 to July 2017 with a deceptive advertisement that it removes 99.99 percent of harmful substances such as fine dust and viruses.
Gate Vision also advertised "Blueair" air purifiers and "Dyson" air purifier fans from November 2014 and March 2015, respectively, saying that it will remove 99.97% of ultra-fine particles and clean 99.95% of ultra-fine dust.
The FTC judged that advertising of air cleaning performance under extremely limited conditions could lead to misrepresentation of actual performance in general environment, even if these results are true.
In addition, the fact that limitations on testing agencies, subjects, methods, and conditions of products are not detailed is considered to be deceiving consumers, the FTC said.
"Amway's related sales were 203.1 billion won and Gate Vision 13.4 billion won," said an FTC official.