Intl Panel To Check Pepsodent Claim

The Monopolies & Restrictive Trade Practices Commission has set up a three-member international panel of experts to examine whether Hindustan Levers claim of its toothpaste, New Pepsodent, being 102 per cent superior to Colgate Dental Cream of Colgate Palmolive (India) is correct.

The panel consists of Michael Cole, professor of microbiology at University of Georgetown, Washington DC, Richard E Stallard, director, Family Dental Clinic, Doha (Qatar), and P D Marsh, professor of oral microbiology at Leeds Dental Institute, UK. Cole will act as the convenor of the panel.

Stallard has been nominated by the complainant, Colgate Palmolive, while the respondent, HLL, has nominated Marsh. The committee is expected to submit its report within four months. However, it can approach MRTPC for extension of the time limit through the parties to the proceedings if the members are not able to submit the report within the stipulated period.

 

The experts will be free to carry out any test deemed necessary by them and would adopt any protocol considered appropriate by them, according to an MRTPC order issued on February 13.

The panel was considered imperative as the commission said the issue was too complicated for it to handle.

MRTPC had earlier issued an interim order prohibiting HLL from airing advertisement claiming 102 per cent superiority of New Pepsodent over the leading toothpaste. The MRTPC injunction is for the period that the panel would take to submit its report.

HLL had moved the Supreme Court against the order, saying that the injunction was based on wrong procedure. According to HLL, the onus was on Colgate, which had filed the complaint, to prove that the superiority claim was false. But MRTPC had presumed falsity on the part of HLL which was not permissible. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on December 17. Colgate Palmolive had submitted before the court that it had lost tremendously in the toothpaste market after HLL had started its New Pepsodent campaign. The company had maintained that the campaign was inherently deceptive as it alleged that Colgate was an inferior product.

HLL had earlier submitted to MRTPC comprehensive technical data in support of New Pepsodents superiority claim, but the commission and Colgate Palmolive had remained unimpressed.

It had also said that Pepsodent had a well-known and internationally proved anti-bacterial agent Triclosan which was effective against oral germs.