Experts from Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) checked OOO Alcor-C (L’Etoile), a cosmetics chain, for compliance with the consumer rights and sanitary legislation. The check involved inspecting 3,725 items offered for sale, 2,033 of which were called off. This amounted to 4.6% of all the goods inspected. Among the discarded items were 372 cosmetic products past their sell-by date. This was 18% of the total amount.

Among the problems detected by the inspectors were the facts that some products offered for sale expired as early as February 2008; that a lot of the goods displayed on the shelves were accompanied by inaccurate tag information that misled the customers as to what country the products had been manufactured in; that some of the goods had no price tags at all; and that some products were not accompanied by any information about the product, its manufacturer, the manufacturer’s registered location, or the mode of use in Russian.

Besides, the store display areas are provided with samples and testers of goods by Estee Lauder, Givenchy, Christian Dior, Sisley, and some other cosmetics brands to make sure the customers can make the right choice, but these testers bear no information as to their expiry date.

The firm and its executives had to face administrative liability, with charges based on Articles 14.15, 14.8 (part 1), 14.7, 14.4 (part 2), and 6.3 of the Russian Federation Administrative Offense Code. They also paid a total of 73,800 RUR in fines.