Hydro Service ignored the ad watchdog's binding order — so it published their name

Hydro Service Schweiz AG of Wohlen sells water treatment systems, and its advertising made three kinds of claims: about the company's technology, about limescale protection (Kalkschutz), and about environmental benefits. A competitor complained, and the Swiss Fair Trading Commission's First Chamber ruled on 10 September 2025 with a binding recommendation: substantiate the claims or stop using them. The recommendation was served on 25 September 2025.

The company did neither. It continued to use all the contested advertising statements without modification. On 13 November 2025 it finally submitted a study meant to prove its systems work — but the commission found it insufficient to satisfy the binding recommendation, and noted that a statement of position in enforcement proceedings cannot replace an appeal the company had missed.

On 4 March 2026 the Third Chamber granted the enforcement measures, and the sanction was the publication itself: SLK decisions are normally anonymised, but this one was put on the commission's website with the company named in full — the stated consequence of ignoring a binding recommendation. Under the commission's rules the name will be anonymised again one year after publication.