4 Companies were Detected Doing Contests under "LOTTERY"
MCI has confirmed to the companies, institutions and factories, not to compel the consumers to purchase as a condition for participation in the contests, offers and raffles organized by them, or put a contest coupon within the Item, or increase the prevailing price for the commodity during the contest, along with not carrying out or announcing for any contests only after obtaining a license, according to the provisions of the Commercial Fraud Combating. MCI considers that the payment of any amount, or requiring consumers to buy versus participating in the contests, is a kind of "lottery", essentially forbidden in the kingdom according to the applied regulations.
MCI pointed out that it had detected four commercial companies making advertisements for contests and requiring the purchase in order to participate in them, where the necessary regulations had been applied against the violating institutions, along with the stopping of publishing such ads, while the concerned officials were summoned for taking the legal procedures against them.
Ditto, the Ministry had implemented provisions included fines and publishing the verdict in the local newspapers on a number of companies and institutions requiring the consumers to purchase in order to enter the contests, which is considered a clear and explicit violation of the regulations in force in the Kingdom, which prohibit all kinds of lottery contests.
MCI pointed out that the commercial institutions, wishing to conduct contests, should submit the applications to the Chambers of Commerce in their province before at least 30 days from the starting date.
The regulations stipulate that the contest should not contain anything that prejudice the principles of the law and customs observed in the Kingdom, the contest license application should include clearly the statement of its program and how to subscribe, in addition to the announcement of the contest awards with the proof of ownership, and the number of the contest vouchers with a sample, in addition to enrolling the Ministry license number in any contest advertisement.
According to the terms of the regulations, a screening committee of the licensed contest results will be formed, chaired by a representative of the Ministry or the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where the said committee would prepare a record of the results and the names of the winners, their addresses, and the awards they would receive, the contest results should be announced at least once in the same media that the contest had been announced before.
MCI calls on all the consumers to report against those violating the terms of conducting the contests, to the Report Center at the Ministry on the phone No. 1900.