(1) With regard to the comparison of prices, the court stated that the type of comparison used by the plaintiff was not objective. When comparing the price of the respective goods, the timeframe of comparison is an essential criterion.
Therefore, when consumers are provided with the information about a historical competitors’ prices, they do not acquire any objective or real value of such comparison, because they are not informed about the benefit to be obtained if the good is purchased from the plaintiff.
Moreover, such comparison demonstrates only a hypothetical price difference, which can mislead consumers and therefore does not meet the criteria of permitted comparative advertising as referred to in Article 4(c) of Directive 2006/114/EC (implemented into Lithuanian law by Article 6(3) of the Law on Advertising).
(2) With regard to the comparison of delivery terms, the court stated that the comparative advertisement was automatically prohibited if it constituted unfair commercial practice as referred to in Art 4(a) of Directive 2006/114/EC (implemented into Lithuanian law by Article 5(6) of the Law on Advertising). Since the delivery of goods was advertised as “free of charge” without any reservations, even though the delivery fee was applied when buying goods at a price lower than LTL 199,99, such commercial practice of the plaintiff was regarded as unfair under Article 20 of Annex I of Directive 2005/29/EC (implemented into Lithuanian law by Article 7(18) of the Law on Prohibition of Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices). Therefore, the comparative advertising of the plaintiff was prohibited.