Samara UFAS recognized the advertising of legal services on bankruptcy as improper

The Antimonopoly Agency in the Samara region had to consider a complaint about search advertising of legal services on the Yandex portal. One of the most controversial formulations in the text of the message was the phrase "bankruptcy leaders". However, the employees of the supervisory authority did not find objective evidence of "leadership". As a result, the advertisement was deemed inappropriate on several grounds at once (paragraphs 1, 20, Part 3 of Article 5 of the Federal Law "On Advertising")

The hyperlink in the advertising message led to the website of the Centurion Law firm (centurion-bankrotstvo.ru ). The advertisement reported that the company helps citizens legally write off debts through bankruptcy proceedings. It was also indicated that the company has been operating since 2015, and customers can pay for services after a court decision.

During the proceedings, it turned out that the advertisement was distributed not by a legal entity, but by an individual entrepreneur. Moreover, he was registered in this capacity only in the middle of 2020. According to the commission considering this case, an ordinary person could have the impression that a law firm, and not an individual, was addressing him.

The attempts of explanation made by the sole proprietor when considering the complaint in the regional FAS are curious.

According to the entrepreneur, the phrase "bankruptcy leaders" does not at all carry the connotation of advantages in the spirit of "the best" or "the most". This is just a "play on words", that is, an analogy between the words "centurion" (commander of a Roman military formation of one hundred people) and "leader" (group leader).

The businessman also attributed the indication that the company has been operating since 2015 not to the date of the official establishment of the company, but to the experience of employees, taking into account those who work with him under civil law contracts. Since some of them, the sole proprietor said, have been providing legal services since 2015, the information in the advertisement cannot be considered unreliable.

A complaint about false advertising was received by the Federal Antimonopoly Service for the Samara region on December 21, 2021. The site where the advertising link led continues to work at the present time.

It contains a portrait of the "director of the law firm" Sergey Abakumov and photographs of employees (in particular, sales managers, lawyers, heads of branches in the cities of Togliatti and Syzran).

Data from open sources indicate that the company "Centurion" (LLC) under the leadership of Sergey Abakumov really worked in Samara since October 30, 2014 (TIN 6316203551), but was liquidated on May 12, 2020. Now a company with the same name (TIN 6319715893) is operating in the city, but it is unknown whether it has anything to do with the site and the case under consideration.