Apology and Announcement
We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your continued patronage.
In accordance with the administrative order issued by the Consumer Affairs Agency on March 25, 2025, pursuant to Article 7, Paragraph 1 of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (hereinafter referred to as the "Premiums and Representations Act"), we hereby announce the following to eliminate any misunderstandings among general consumers.
In selling the supplement called "Rohto V5 Actvision a" (hereinafter referred to as "the Product") to general consumers, our company provided the Product free of charge to third parties through a monitor recruitment site (a website that recruits monitors for products that businesses wish to advertise, provides the product free of charge to the monitors, and requests them to post reviews and answer questionnaires, etc., as a so-called "monitor service"), and requested that they post about the Product on a social networking service called "Instagram" in accordance with the policies instructed by our company. As a result, between June 4, 2024 and July 29, 2024, our company extracted the image portion of the posts made by these third parties and displayed it on our website, for example, "I'm using it too from... The Instagram post, along with images of a fingertip holding one capsule of the product, the product before its renewal, and a small plate on which the product was placed, displayed phrases such as "Easy to continue because you only need one capsule a day" and "Smooth, easy-to-swallow soft capsules." Therefore, it was determined that this display constituted a representation made by our company regarding the transaction of the product we supply (hereinafter referred to as "the business operator's representation"). Furthermore, the representation did not clearly indicate that it was a post commissioned by our company to the third party, and it was not deemed clear from the overall content of the display that it was a business operator's representation. As such, it was deemed difficult for general consumers to determine that it was a business operator's representation, and there was a risk that general consumers would be misled regarding matters related to the transaction of the product, thus violating the Premiums and Representations Act.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to our customers and all those involved.
Going forward, we will take the corrective action order very seriously and sincerely, and we will strive to prevent recurrence by thoroughly informing our officers and employees about measures to prevent recurrence, conducting training and education, and strengthening our compliance and management systems, including internal reviews before publication.
April 15, 2020
ROHTO Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.