Taiwan weekly legal update: Toilet paper chaos; Occupational Safety standards

Taiwan weekly legal update: Toilet paper chaos; Occupational Safety standards

Fair Trade Committee: RT-Mart has violated false and misleading advertisement.

The Fair Trade Committee delivered its adjudication concerning the information and a series of action released by RT-Mart about the potential price surge of tissue paper, adjudicated that the RT-Mart has violated §25 of the Fair Trade Act, given a fine of 3.5 million NT dollar.

The Committee described that by the time of the Committee was investigating concerted action taking by the tissue paper industries, the Committee find out that the RT-Mart released a message to a number of leading media on 23 February, which was the beginning of its sales period of tissue, saying that “tissue paper is definitely going to encounter a 30% price surge, the wholesalers enjoys a 5 times sales performance.” The Committee described that after the RT-Mart released the message of price surge, the RT-Mart also released other information about its policy to remain a lower price on tissue paper later on. In fact, the RT-Mart had not received any reliable information or made any confirmation with the tissue paper manufacturers but released the false message and misleading advertisement to the customers whatsoever.

Look into the detail of the message released, the RT-Mart said that the “several leading brands of tissue paper”, “price surge of 30%, not just 1~3%”, “price surge will begin in mid-March or April ”. However, the RT-Mart could not provide any evidence to support the “30%” of price surge, nor to support the timing of surge.

The Committee further explained that tissue paper wholesale would normally encounter a low season after Chinese new year, but the price surge and outrageous market atmosphere was deliberately created by the RT-Mart, causing public panic and irrational behavior on scrambling for tissue paper. Other wholesalers and manufacturers were also facing a rush and sudden shortage of tissue paper, causing unnecessary troubles and a rise in cost.

Thus, the Committee delivered that the act of RT-Mart has violated the Fair Trade Act-false and misleading advertisement, causing a serious market disorder, given a fine of 3.5 million NT dollars. Further investigation will be done on this price surge.

 

https://www.ey.gov.tw/UnitRSS_Content.aspx?n=8092BD84714005C0&s=D41C4AE6F987B293

Tai-Power is planning to recruit trainees for wind power industries.

The Tai-Power Company and several foreign companies, jointly with TW Ports Corp, China Steel, and CSBC signed a letter of intent for a joint venture on “Taiwan Wind Power Training Company”. The training company is expected to establish in Taichung harbor in 2019 and recruit trainees for wind power technician professionals.

The Tai-Power described that Taiwan is just starting to have wind power industries, thus we are eager to find and train our own professional technician on wind power. Tai-Power and the Taichung harbor is planning to establish a comprehensive wind power investment zone by adopting the standards of Global Wind Organization and establishing training company.

According to the transitional energy policy of Taiwan, offshore wind power is one of the important solutions for transitional energy. And which the west coast is a potential area for wind power. For now, the first term of offshore wind power project is expected to launch in 2018 and the Tai-power is managing the infrastructure of distribution networks. And the training company will focus on emergency management, operation, fire prevention, and working in high places and on water.

 

https://www.ey.gov.tw/UnitRSS_Content.aspx?n=8092BD84714005C0&s=D79FE7EBCAE7B883

Ministry of Labor: applying International Occupational Health and Safety standards.

The International Standard Organization (ISO) has released ISO 45001 for Occupational Health and Safety, in order to set a global standard for countries to apply. The Ministry of Labor is going to renew the domestic labor standards.

The Ministry described that Taiwan has employed Taiwan Occupational Safety and Health Management Systems TOSHMS in 2008. Since then, 953 companies had passed the examination. Due to the latest ISO 45001, the Ministry is going to renew the standards and cooperate with the Bureau of Occupational Health.

Several mechanisms to apply:

1. Jointly with the Ministry of Economic, renew the examination of TOSHMS.

2. Amendments to Chinese National Standards (CNS).

3. Compulsory adaptation of CNS to high-risk industries and businesses to a certain scale.

4. Special awards to companies and businesses that have outstanding performances on occupational health and safety policies.

The Ministry explains that the TOSHMS is a systematic management of health and safety. Every company should follow the process of [Plan-Direct-Check-Action]. Last, the Ministry will push the global standards to adapt in domestic CNS and make sure that every industry shall apply to these standards smoothly, and encourages companies to make up their own proposals of health and safety by this new ISO 45001 standards.

 

https://www.ey.gov.tw/UnitRSS_Content.aspx?n=8092BD84714005C0&s=C12A67071441EBB5


 

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