Fines of between €500 and €30,000 can be imposed on traders if products on shelves and in shop windows do not have price tags. It should be noted that the fine is imposed regardless of whether the store has an electronic price checker and whether the products have a barcode on their packaging.

According to the decision of the Administrative Court of Thessaloniki, the imposition of the fine, in addition to being constitutional and legal, is “in the public interest to protect consumers from misleading information practices in shaping their purchasing intentions.”

A complaint was made against a businessman who owned a shop selling cosmetics and parapharmaceutical products, as some products on the shelves did not have labels with the selling price of the products. An audit was carried out by the Interdepartmental Market Control Unit (DIMEA) of the Ministry of Development, which imposed a fine of 2,000 euros for failure to indicate the selling prices per package of products “either on signs or labels, or on other corresponding means of information, placed on the products or next to them, in such a way that the connection between the information provided and the products is immediately perceived by the consumer.”

The businessman appealed against the decision to impose the fine to the competent authority, arguing that the ministerial decision providing for the imposition of fines violates the constitutional principle of equality and the right of citizens to the free development of their personality.

The appeal was dismissed, because “the information provided by the trader to the consumer, concerning the price of the product offered for sale, must be immediately perceived – visible to the consumer – easily perceived – easily accessible and contained on signs or labels or other equivalent means of information placed on or next to the product, so that the consumer can immediately perceive the link between the information provided on the price and the product and has

Therefore, according to the grounds of the rejection decision, ‘the existence of only electronic systems (price checkers), which are price identification and control systems for thousands of product codes available on the shelves of shops, does not replace the obligations of traders to provide price information to consumers’.

Following this, the businessman appealed to the Administrative Court, arguing that the decision imposing the fine was issued “in manifest material error of fact”. This is because “his business, with a total area of 302.02 square meters, has 6 electronic price checkers, i.e. 5 more than the minimum number required, which cover the entire surface of its shop and can be easily used by every consumer before reaching the cash desk, in such a way that the prices of the products sold are immediately verifiable and the link between the information provided and the product is immediately perceived by the consumer, thus excluding the misleading of the consumer and purchases based on the price checkers.

Further, it argued that the products that did not have a price tag “bore a bar code on their packaging and, therefore, the use in this case of an electronic price checker system instead of mechanical marking or affixing a fixed label to them is lawful.”

However, the judges ruled that, as found during the on-site inspection, the selling prices per package of two cosmetic products were not indicated either on signs, labels, or other corresponding means of information, placed either on or next to the products, i.e., either on signs or labels, or other corresponding means of price indication.

It is also pointed out in the court decision that “in view of the public interest objective which the relevant provisions aim to serve, namely the protection of consumers from misleading information practices in shaping their purchasing intentions, in the light of the freedom of self-determination arising from Article 5 para. 1 of the Constitution, there is no question of a violation of the principle of the free exercise of business activity derived from the same article of the Constitution’.

Moreover, the administrative judges continue, given that the “contested measures, which are intended to provide the consumer with direct, complete, accurate and clear information on the price of the product sold, both in isolation and in comparison with similar products available for sale at a time prior to the formation of the consumer’s purchasing decision, are not, however, manifestly inappropriate or unnecessary for the achievement of the public interest objective which they are intended to serve”.

Thus, the businessman’s appeal was dismissed, and as a result he has to pay the fine.