Retail giant Tesco has been fined by the Hungarian Competition Office (GVH) for its use of “unfair business practices”.

The GVH fined the retailer HUF8m (US$42,000) after it was investigated for infringing Hungary’s Act on Unfair Commercial Practices, which is the country’s implementation of the EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

A spokesperson for GVH told just-food: “We found that in regards of some FMCG goods, Tesco infringed ‘point five’ of the blacklist of the relevant Hungarian act, which bans bait advertising.

“Tesco advertised these goods without sufficient stocks – so many consumers couldn’t buy the goods they desired to. As to other practices, we found that in regard to some electronic devices, Tesco advertised these with attributes they didn’t have in reality,” the spokesperson said.

GVH said it has investigated Tesco previously over similar offences.

Tesco declined to comment when contacted by just-food.

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