B2B: Overseas Compliance
PromoVeritas has helped run some of the world’s favourite promotions compliantly and securely since 2002. Emily Vickers, Paralegal at PromoVeritas, explains why running prize draws, competitions, and instant wins in other markets requires careful consideration.
Overseas Compliance – The Fundamentals
Staying the right side of the laws and rules for running promotions is important not only to avoid court cases, fines, corporate or brand embarrassment but also to boost consumer confidence and participation in your promotion. There is no single unified approach to administering promotions around the world. Every country has its own rules, laws and cultural practices which can make running campaigns across different markets a legal minefield.
The Main Lookouts
At PromoVeritas we have experience of the rules, laws and best practices for most of the countries all over the world. Here are some areas, and examples to consider:
| Specific Country Laws/codes | Islamic law prohibits prize draws as a form of gambling | Winner Selection | May require government involvement |
| Culture | In Hong Kong you cannot give away 4 of anything | Data Restrictions | Italy requires data to be stored in Italy |
| History | Certain dates and events need to be avoided | Prizes | Values or types of prizes may be outlawed |
| Public holidays | These vary around the world | Authorisation | Government approval, admin or fees |
| Politics | Environmental issues | Registration fees | Can be considerable |
| Children | Age of majority is not universal | Taxes | Can be as high as 40% |
The most important thing to consider is that national laws and regulations differ enormously by market. For example within Europe, France and Germany are fairly lenient markets with not many rules to follow. Italy however, has a list of rules that need to be followed in order to run a compliant promotion, for example, registration of the promotion is required, no cross border promotions permitted and unawarded prizes must be given to a designated charity in the terms and conditions.
Whilst countries may be close in distance as we have seen above this does NOT mean that their rules and regulations are similar. Brands also need to be aware of taxes payable by either themselves or the winners as this can have a big impact on what they decide to use as prizes.
How to decide the best approach for your brand?
- How risk averse is the brand?
- How soon do you want to run the promotion?
- What is the nature & value of the prizes on offer?
- Are there plans for marketing in each country to support the promotion?
- How big are your budgets?
How PromoVeritas can support you
If you want to run complicated cross-border or overseas promotions without the headache, our team of marketing, legal and operations experts are here to help.
- Global promotional advice
- Legal reviews for multi market promotions
- Terms & Conditions, localised and translated
- Overseas registrations and administration
- Dedicated winner management
- Global prize fulfiment
Get In Touch
For a chat about how we can help you with your promotions contact us now.