The Guidelines are formulated in accordance with the Advertising Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Advertising Law), the Law of the People's Republic of China on Administrative Penalties and other laws, regulations, rules and relevant provisions of the State for the purpose of regulating and strengthening supervision and law enforcement on absolute terms in advertising, effectively maintaining the order of the advertising market, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of natural persons, legal persons and other organizations.

1. The Guidelines are aimed to provide guidance for market supervision departments to carry out supervision and law enforcement on absolute terms in advertising, for reference by local market supervision departments in their work.

2. The term "absolute terms" in advertising as mentioned in the Guidelines refers to the circumstances stipulated in Item 3 of Article 9 of the Advertising Law, which include such terms as "national level", "highest level", "best" and others with the same or similar meanings.

3. The market supervision departments shall adhere to the principles of penalty corresponding to fault, fairness and justice, combination of punishment and education, and comprehensive discretion when carrying out supervision and law enforcement on commercial advertisements containing absolute terms, so as to achieve unified political, social and legal effects.

4. Where a commodity operator (including a service provider, the same below) publishes information about its name, abbreviation, logo, date of establishment, business scope and other information on its business premises, own websites or other media to which it has the legal right to use, and does not directly or indirectly promote its commodities (including services, the same below), it shall generally not be regarded as advertising.

Where absolute terms are used in the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph, for which the commodity operator cannot prove its authenticity, and which may affect the right of consumers to know or harm the legitimate rights and interests of other business operators, it shall be investigated and dealt with in accordance with other laws and regulations.

5. Under any of the following circumstances, the provisions on absolute terms in the Advertising Law shall not apply if the terms used in advertisements do not point to the commodities sold by commodity operators:

(1) Those which merely indicate the service attitude or business philosophy, corporate culture or subjective wishes of the commodity operator;

(2) Those which merely express the goals pursued by the commodity operator;

(3) Other circumstances where the content of the absolute terms is not directly related to the performance and quality of the commodities in the advertisement, and will not be misleading to consumers.

6. Under any of the following circumstances, the provisions on absolute terms in the Advertising Law shall not apply if the terms used in advertisements refer to the commodities sold by commodity operators but will not result in objective consequences of misleading consumers or degrading other operators:

(1) Those which are used only for self-comparison of commodities of the same brand or enterprise;

(2) Those which are used only to publicize the usage, use time and storage period of the commodities and other tips for consumption;

(3) Where absolute terms are included in terms for commodity classification in accordance with national, industrial and local standards, and the basis can be provided;

(4) Where absolute terms are included in commodity name, specification, registered trademark or patent which are used in advertisements to refer to the commodity in order to distinguish from other commodities;

(5) Where absolute terms are included in awards and titles granted in accordance with relevant provisions of the State;

(6) Those which are used to express objective circumstances of the temporal and spatial order or publicize factual information such as sales volume, sales revenue and market share under the conditions of specific time and region.

7. Where absolute terms in advertisements fall under the circumstances specified in Article 5 and Article 6 of the Guidelines, but the advertiser cannot prove their authenticity, it shall be investigated and dealt with in accordance with relevant provisions of the Advertising Law.

8. When imposing administrative penalties for absolute terms in advertisements, the market supervision departments shall accurately grasp the law enforcement standards and reasonably exercise administrative penalty discretion in accordance with the Advertising Law and other laws and regulations, combining such situations as the advertising content, specific context, and the facts, nature, circumstances, degree of social harm of the illegal acts as well as subjective faults of the parties concerned.

9. Except for the circumstances specified in Article 5 and Article 6 of the Guidelines, where absolute terms are used in advertisements for the first time which cause minor harmful consequences and are corrected in time, no administrative penalty may be imposed.

10. Where a commodity operator uses absolute terms in the advertisements published on its business premises, own websites or other media to which it has the legal right of use, which lasts for a short time or are viewed by a few number of people, has not caused any harmful consequences and are corrected in time, no administrative penalty shall be imposed according to laws; for those which cause minor harmful consequences, lighter or mitigated administrative penalty may be given according to laws.

Other circumstances where lighter, mitigated or no administrative penalty may be given according to laws shall comply with the provisions of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Administrative Penalties and other laws and regulations as well as the Guiding Opinions on Regulating Administrative Penalty Discretion for Market Supervision and Administration issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation.

11. Any of the following circumstances shall generally not be deemed as minor illegal acts or causing less social harm:

(1) Where absolute terms related to efficacy, cure rate or effective rate are used in advertisements for medical treatment, medical cosmetology, drugs, medical devices, health food or food for special medical purpose;

(2) Where absolute terms related to the rate of return on investment and investment security are used in commodity advertisements with expected return on investment, such as advertisements for attracting investment;

(3) Where absolute terms related to education or training institutions or to the effects of education or training are used in advertisements for education or training.

12. The market supervision departments may, in accordance with relevant provisions, formulate a list of minor violations of the law with absolute terms in advertising which may be exempted from penalties, and make dynamic adjustments.

Source: SAMR

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