The Chinese arm of Dutch electronics giant Royal Philips NV is being sued by a Chinese government villa in Beijing over alleged false advertising of air purifiers, a Chinese court said yesterday.
The Diaoyutai State Guesthouse regularly receives foreign heads of state and government — more than 1,200 since it opened in 1959 — and has accommodated former US presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, as well as former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung.
It accused Philips (China) Investment Co Ltd (飛利浦中國投資) of falsely promoting its air purifiers as having been specifically designed for the hotel and having “served leaders of various countries,” the Haidian District People’s Court said in a statement.
The advertisements, which were run in newspapers and online, claimed that Diaoyutai used the products during last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing, the court said, citing the guesthouse.
However, the plaintiff said it “had never purchased or used the air purifiers the defendant promoted,” according to the court statement.
The hotel complained that Philips “used Diaoyutai State Guesthouse’s popularity and reputation without authorization in its product advertisements, fabricated stories, and severely infringed the plaintiff’s legal rights and interests,” it added.
The guesthouse, affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanded that Philips pay 100,000 yuan (US$16,000) in compensation and apologize at least twice in national media, the statement said.
The court is reviewing the case, it added.
At the time of the summit last year, public sector workers were given an extended holiday and factory closures were imposed to ensure the capital’s notorious pollution did not blight the event — giving the skies a short-lived clarity derisively dubbed “APEC blue.”
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