German supermarket Aldi’s false discounts violate EU law, according to the highest European Court

The German supermarket Aldi has breached EU law in terms of consumer protection by offering false discounts on basic products such as bananas. The company, a branch of the supermarket chain that supplies the south of Germanywas accused of raise prices with the aim of, after a time, lowering them again announcing an offer.

The Court of Justice of the EU ruled today that “traders are prohibited from deceive the consumer increasing the price charged before announcing a price reduction, thus showing false price reductions.”

Price reductions in percentage form “must be determined based on the lowest price applied by the merchant for a period of not less than 30 days before the application of the price reduction,” the Court said.

The case was brought by a consumer organization Baden-Württemberg (Germany) following some advertisements in which Aldi claimed to have lowered the price of bananas by 23%.

In fact, the fine print showed that the price was not lower than at other times in the previous month, which violated Brussels rules on the indication of prices and unfair commercial practices, according to the organization.

Aldi argued that those laws simply They required him to show the previous prices, rather than dictating the details of how you present ads. Aldi and the consumer association that has denounced the supermarket have not yet responded to the questions posed by this medium.