European City Guide - deceitful and misleading

We have referred to the notorious European City Guide (ECG) contract in many columns but the most important referral was when I wrote about the very positive development when the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued a press release under the heading "Spanish ruling protects UK businesses".

A Spanish court upheld a ruling that ECG misled UK businesses into paying for adverts in its directory, describing the mailshot as "deceitful and misleading". ECG were originally found by the Catalan authorities to have seriously infringed Spanish laws on misleading advertising in March 2001 following international co-operation with the OFT. Subsequently ECG's appeal against this ruling was dismissed.

Cross-border co-operation proved to be effective in tackling unfair business practices. This was considered a good result from the Spanish courts that protects UK companies from such misleading practices.

As far as "bitten" Maltese companies are concerned, this constitutes a very important precedent. Many Maltese companies wrote to me expressing interest in joining forces with a view to taking action against ECG. On my part I expressed my willingness to help these companies join forces and quite a few companies wrote to me.

At this point we need a company to take the initiative to lead. Besides, we need a company to offer its boardroom with a view to setting up a meeting to explore whatever legal action can be taken against European City Guide.

From then on the ball is in your court but I would be more than happy to help by featuring important information about developments etc.