European City Guide - deceitful and misleading

The most important reference we made to the European City Guide (ECG) was when I wrote about the press release issued by the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) under the heading "Spanish ruling protects UK businesses".

A Spanish court upheld a ruling that ECG misled UK businesses into paying for adverts in its directory, describing the mailshot as 'deceitful and misleading'. ECG were originally found by the Catalan authorities to have seriously infringed Spanish laws on misleading advertising in March 2001 following international co-operation with the OFT. Subsequently ECG's appeal against this ruling was dismissed.

Cross-border co-operation proved to be effective in tackling unfair business practices. This was considered a good result from the Spanish courts that protects UK companies from such misleading practices.

As far as "bitten" Maltese companies are concerned, this constitutes a very important precedent. Many Maltese companies wrote to me expressing interest in joining forces with a view to taking action against ECG. I expressed my willingness on many occasions to help such companies join forces.

However, as I already explained, we need a company or companies to take the initiative to lead other companies. Besides, we need a company to offer its boardroom to organise a meeting to explore whatever legal action can be taken against European City Guide. I am prepared to give you space in this column wherein you can communicate with each other, just as I do with regard to other issues such as the misled Eagle Star policyholders issue. However, all I get is letters and telephone calls asking me for advice which I am not in a position to give.