The Commerce Commission has filed charges against Woolworths NZ. File picture. Photo: Ziming Li
The Commerce Commission has filed criminal charges against Woolworths NZ for alleged inaccurate pricing and misleading specials that may have breached the Fair Trading Act.
The commission filed the charges against Woolworths in the Auckland District Court.
It indicated in December last year that it would be filing separate criminal charges against Woolworths and two Pak'nSave supermarkets.
At that time, the commission said there were ongoing issues with pricing in the supermarket sector and the operators may have breached the Fair Trading Act.
In a December statement, deputy chair Anne Callinan said operators should know what the expectations were.
"Supermarkets have long been on notice about the importance of accurate and clear pricing and specials, and we're not satisfied with the continuing issues we're seeing across the industry.
"Pricing accuracy is a consumer right and an expectation of a competitive market. The major supermarkets are large, well-resourced businesses that should invest the time and effort to get pricing and promotions right."
She said the charges were filed to remind all supermarkets that they are expected to fix the pricing accuracy issues and implement better processes.
In a statement, Woolworths NZ said it had been cooperating with the Commerce Commission's investigation for some time saying it would carefully review the charges.
Woolworths New Zealand interim managing director Pieter de Wet said they knew that it was important that prices were accurate and "the prices we advertise are the prices customers are charged at the checkout".
"We have over 3.5 million transactions in our stores each week, and sometimes errors do occur. When they do, we try to make things right, through our long-standing and market-leading refund policy. Under that policy, if a customer is charged more than the advertised price for a product, they get a full refund and can keep the product."
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