Vietnam fined a water-ionizer seller for claiming 'No.1 choice of Vietnamese users'

Cosmos Japan Creation distributes Trim Ion, the alkaline water ionizers made by Japan's Nihon Trim, in Vietnam. On its own website it ran the claim 'Trim Ion – sự lựa chọn số 1 của người dùng Việt' — Trim Ion, the number-one choice of Vietnamese users.

Vietnam's National Competition Commission, under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, ruled the claim inaccurate and misleading: an unbacked 'No.1' assertion about the enterprise and its goods, made to draw customers away from competitors — an unfair competition practice under the Competition Law, read together with the Advertising Law, which bars superlatives like 'number one' without substantiation.

Decision 175/QĐ-CT, issued 22 June 2026, fined the company 200,000,000 dong and ordered it to publicly correct the misleading information on its website. The commission noted the company cooperated, supplied documents and took steps to limit the consequences. Vietnam's amended Advertising Law, in force from 1 January 2026, has since tightened the rules on exactly this kind of claim.