A cartel of four rechargeable battery manufacturers has been fined a total of £147 million by the European Commission (EC) for colluding to rig prices.

One member of the cartel, Samsung, was spared any fine for informing on the other three, which were Sony Corporation and companies (fined £26 million), Panasonic Corporation and companies (fined £35 million) and Sanyo with Panasonic companies (fined £86 million).

The companies shared with each other the prices they were going to charge in competitive bidding situations and agreed levels of price increases when the price of cobalt went up from 2004 to 2007, all in breach of the Competition Act.

A Scottish sea salt company has ceased trading after its product was found to be mostly cheap table salt imported from Israel.

The Hebridean Sea Salt Company marketed its expensive salt with a very Scottish image, claiming it was “As Pure as Nature” and made from “Grade A certified sea water, taken daily from the remote and stunning Loch Erisort out in the wilds of the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides” However, following a tip off from a former employee, Food Standards Scotland (FSS) discovered that the product had been bulked up with 80% cheap imported table salt. Continue reading →

Some of those who have wanted to avoid wearing real fur, so as to deny support to fur slaughterhouses in Asia, have been disappointed after buying items in House of Fraser or Misguided, Sky News has reported.

#Both retailers have a strict no-fur policy which helps their marketing but both have recently been exposed selling items, reportedly unknowingly, with real fur marked as fake. (faux fur) According to fibres experts however some of the fake is very real, being ripped from cats and dogs, as well as rabbits and racoons, and which is cheaper than faux fur.

Fur “farms”, as the slaughterhouses for domestic pets and the like in Asia are called, were outlawed in the UK in 2003.

Calling a 118 directory enquiries service to get a phone number can cost up to £8.98 per call, if you use 118118, which was 58 pence in 2003.

Even worse is to come if you accept the 118118 invitation to “connect you through” to the number they’ve found as the charges per minute stay at the same rip-off rates of £2.57 per minute from a BT landline and around £5 per minute from most mobiles.

Go online to get telephone numbers free, or get someone connected to do it for you.

Congratulations to Pepsi for supplying this year’s most naff ad, which was quickly withdrawn by the company last month.

This starred model Kendall Jenner joining a peace protest march and making peace with a police officer with a can of the fizzy drink, a cringe-making dumbing down that heaped ridicule on Pepsi marketeers, who apologised for trivialising the peace movement and “missing the mark”.

Let’s hope Ms Jenner was well-rewarded for so sportingly allowing herself to be portrayed as vacuous and inane.

Meanwhile not far behind Pepsi in the naff race is McDonalds, where the little gem hatched up by their marketeers attracted more than 100 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) before it was pulled.

This featured a young boy struggling to find something he has in common with his late father, and only cheering up when his mother tells him the McDonald’s burger he has chosen to eat was his dead father’s favourite too.

Pass the sick bag…