Aldi: Dunnes ad campaign ‘misleading’

Dunnes Stores head Margaret Heffernan ignored complaints by rival supermarket giant Aldi alleging her company was carrying on a misleading comparative advertising campaign in "flagrant" breach of the relevant laws, the Commercial Court has been told.

Michael McDowell, counsel for Aldi, said Dunnes acted unlawfully in how it carried out a comparative advertising campaign he said was aimed at trying to staunch a “haemorrhage” of customers to Aldi and Lidl in the “highly competitive” supermarket trade.

Dunnes seems to feel it had done nothing wrong and Aldi feared that, if it got “the green light” for such behaviour, it would immediately resume it, counsel added.