The company behind one of the worlds best known baby food brands was ordered to pay £60,000 in fines and costs by a Birmingham judge yesterday in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country. John Wyeth and Brother, the makers of SMA baby food, was criticised for misleading parents in an advertising campaign. The firm was fined £26,000 and ordered to pay £35,000 costs at Birmingham Magistrates Court after being convicted of six breaches of rules controlling the advertising of formula milk in commercial magazines. Judge Rod Ross labelled the breaches cynical and deliberate and described company director Graham Crawford as being ex-traordinarily evasive during cross-examination. A large national company has to be very careful in observing the regulations, particularly when it manufactures products like these which go to vulnerable areas of society, said the judge. The defendant deliberately crossed the line in an effort to advertise to a vulnerable section of the public and this was a cynical and deliberate breach of regulations. During the eight-day trial, the court heard how the company - whose parent firm Wyeth reported first quarter earnings of about £900 million in April - had placed an article in six parenting magazines in 2001. It was headed Advertisement and highlighted four ingredients which any common whey-based baby formula should ideally contain. But in July 2001, Birmingham Trading Standards received a complaint from Sutton Coldfield mother Elizabeth Petley and began an investigation. When officials looked into the four ideal ingredients featured in the article, they found the only market formula at that time which contained them all was an SMA product, SMA Gold. Judge Ross ruled the company had breached the Food Safety Act which, in order to help promote breast-feeding, bans adverts for infant formula milk for babies under six months old. He added that Mr Crawford and others had decided to ignore the advice of an in-house lawyer that the article was likely to breach the law. It is clear to me that the defendant knew very well that the article could be perceived by the public as an advert for SMA Gold, Judge Ross said. They were prepared to ignore the advice of their legal department and took the risk of prosecution. Speaking after the trial, a leading member of the pressure group Baby Milk Action said the ruling was historic. The groups policy director, Patti Rundall, said: It is the first action of its kind to be successful and it is an extremely important decision. Had we lost this case, then the Government would been under huge pressure from the big corporations to lessen the regulations on marketing baby food products. Birmingham Trading Standards deserve an awful lot of praise because they have pursued this action when other local authorities might have baulked at the cost. They have shown no company is above the law. Jane Tomlinson, head of public relations for SMA Nutrition, said it was considering an appeal. She said the company did not believe they had contravened the law at the time of publication. | 
