Federal Court declares eucalyptus oil claims to be misleading, deceptive

National Chemical Pty Ltd had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct over country of origin labelling of eucalyptus oil it supplied, the Federal Court, Melbourne has found.

"The 200ml bottles of "Superior" brand eucalyptus oil were labelled as "PRODUCT OF AUSTRALIA" when the oil was imported from China", Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman, Mr Graeme Samuel, said today. "The oil was supplied to Woolworths and its subsidiaries and also promoted as a product of Australia in the newspaper, Fight Back For Australia.

"The ACCC instituted proceedings against National Chemical Pty Ltd alleging its contravened the Trade Practices Act 1974 by being misleading and deceptive and falsely representing the place of origin of the eucalyptus oil.

"The court declared National Chemical Pty Ltd:

• engaged in conduct that was misleading and deceptive or was likely to mislead or deceive contrary to section 52 of the Act; and
• made false representations concerning the place of origin of the eucalyptus oil contrary to section 53(eb) of the Act.

The court ordered, by consent, that National Chemical Pty Ltd:

• be restrained for three years from making the same or similar representations about any product where any significant ingredient or ingredients of that product is or are imported or where National Chemical Pty Ltd does not know the place of origin of the ingredients;
• place a corrective advertisement in the next issue of Fightback for Australia;
• appoint a compliance officer to scrutinise and approve all labels affixed to National Chemical's products and all advertising material promoting those products; and
• pay $10,000 towards the ACCC's legal costs.

"Consumers often decide to purchase a product based on its country of origin, especially in the case of Australian produced products. They may even be prepared to pay more for Australian products and as such have a right to be confident that the country of origin labelling on such products is accurate.

"The Product of Australia representation is a premium representation. For a company to use the claim each significant component must originate in Australia and all, or virtually all, of the production processes must take place here".