Polish Savings and Loan Association (SKOK), one of Poland's largest financial institutions, has been fined PLN 304,784 (c. € 75,000) by UOKiK, for practices infringing collective consumer interests. SKOK is also obliged to run an announcement of the decision in a daily newspaper and to publish the decision on its website for six months.
In one of its adverts, SKOK claimed not to invest any of its free financial resources in risky financial instruments and they could not be taken by foreign investors. According to the advert, bankruptcy was not a concern for SKOK as it was for Western Europe and US banks.
UOKiK decided that the advert misled consumers as to how SKOK invested its free financial resources and could lead them to assume that their money would be safer with SKOK than with other financial institutions.
The decision is not final. SKOK has already appealed against it to the Court for Competition and Consumer Protection.
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The original publication date for this article was 26/02/2010.