Updates On China's Advertising Legislation And Enforcement In 2020

• Published date: 19 May 2020
• Author: Ms Justina Zhang (TransAsia Lawyers)
• Subject Matter: Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Food, Drugs, Healthcare, Life Sciences, Advertising, Marketing & Branding, Food and Drugs Law, Biotechnology & Nanotechnology
• Law Firm: Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (GALA)

As the direct impact of COVID-19 in China gradually subsides, the government has released the 2020 legislation plans and the working report for the first quarter of 2020. This article uses those sources to examine the enforcement against false advertisements in 2020 to date and looks ahead at the legislative trend for China's advertising laws in 2020.

SAMR's Key Working Points in 2020

On March 9, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation ("SAMR") and ten other government authorities jointly issued the Notice on Key Points of the Joint Conference on Combating False Advertising in 2020 ("Notice"). According to the Notice, the government will focus its enforcement efforts as follows: cracking down on false advertisements concerning people's health and property safety (such as health food, medical treatment, drugs, real estate, financial investment and financial management); strengthening supervision over emerging forms of advertising; curbing false and illegal advertisements on mobile apps and social media accounts; and cleaning up advertisements that have pornographic content.

Meanwhile, in the flood of news concerning COVID-19 cases, a variety of false advertisements promising to "prevent the virus" emerged. The Notice provides that throughout the ongoing period of prevention and control work related to COVID-19, there shall be coordinated supervision and enforcement efforts on false advertisements related to monitoring advertisements involving illegal wildlife trade, protective equipment (such as masks), and false information regarding epidemic prevention and control.

Enforcement in First Quarter of 2020

On March 27, 2020, the SAMR released the first batch of typical false advertisement cases in 2020, among which four advertisers were fined from RMB 200,000 to RMB 300,000 for using words such as "effectively prevent from COVID-19 or coronavirus" in ads related to healthy food, health products, oral spray and tea. One advertiser was fined RMB 180,000 for stating that its...