Companies that advertised baby bathtubs with over 600 times the standard level of endocrine disruptors as safe products will be investigated by the prosecution. According to the government today (22nd), the Fair Trade Commission accused Daehyeon Chemical Industry and Kihyun Industry of violating the Labeling and Advertising Act for advertising
baby bathtubs with environmental hormones as KC- certified products.
These manufacturing corporations and representatives have already been handed over to trial in April on charges such as the Special Act on Children’s Product Safety and fraud.
As a result of this complaint by the Fair Trade Commission, they were again investigated by the prosecution for violating the Labeling and Advertising Act.
Violation of the Labeling and Advertising Act is an exclusive prosecution case in which the prosecution can prosecute only when the Fair Trade Commission accuses it.
As the prosecution has already confirmed the facts of the case in the process of investigating charges such as fraud, it is dominant to observe that additional prosecution will be made for violations of the Display and Advertising Act soon.
Apart from the accusation, fines of 2 million won for Daehyeon Chemical Industry and 3 million won for Kihyun Industry 안전놀이터were also imposed.
The Fair Trade Commission considered this case to be a ‘serious violation’ in consideration of the consumer’s property and mental damage, and applied a standard rate of 1.5%.
However, the Fair Trade Commission explained that the price of the product was cheap and the sales related to the violation were small, so the fine was set relatively low.
These companies are accused of advertising and selling a baby bathtub in which environmental hormones (phthalate-based plasticizers) have been detected in excess of 612.5 times the safety standard for a year from October 2019 as a safe product.
It was investigated that these companies displayed and sold the KC mark, a safety certification mark, on products that had not been inspected by the safety standards for children’s products.
This product was sold for 5,000 won at Daiso under the name of ‘water draining baby bathtub’, and was distributed in open markets such as Naver and Gmarket, gaining popularity enough to be called ‘national baby bathtub’.
About 3,000 victims said they had health problems because of this product, and in February 2021, they sued these companies and their representatives to the police and reported them to the Fair Trade Commission.