The colourful Foster is a pin-up boy for teachers of consumer protection law, with a history that includes marketing of Bai Lin tea, Chow Low tea, Ageless Aging jelly, the TRIMit diet pill and other products that supposedly have miraculous benefits. He had an interesting connection with Fijian and UK politicians, including controversial contact with Cherie Blair (a nice illustration of the notion that very clever lawyers sometimes have very poor judgment in dealing with charming scammers), and has had trouble with passport and money laundering offences.
The ACCC alleges that Sensaslim and several of its officers engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct and made false representations in relation to the identity of Sensaslim officers, the Sensaslim Spray and the business opportunities offered by Sensaslim.
The alleged conduct includes -
• failing to disclose the involvement of Peter Foster in the business of Sensaslim;The ACCC is seeking court orders including declarations, injunctions, penalties, compensation orders, orders that Sensaslim officers be disqualified from managing corporations in the future and costs.
• falsely representing that the Sensaslim Spray was the subject of a large worldwide clinical trial when in fact no such trial was conducted;
• falsely representing that Dr Capehorn, an obesity specialist, gave unqualified support to the effectiveness of the Sensaslim Spray and the purported clinical trials;
• falsely representing that Michael Boyle was managing the business of Sensaslim;
• failing to disclose that Michael Boyle was intending to resign as Director immediately following the launch of Sensaslim;
• falsely representing that Sensaslim franchisees were already participating in, and profiting from, the Sensaslim franchise, that a Sensaslim franchise had a certain earning potential and that there was a “money back buy back guarantee”
The Federal Court last week made orders granting leave for the ACCC to proceed against Sensaslim Australia Pty Ltd (Administrator Appointed). Foster, O’Brien and Adams are restrained from taking further steps to make representations regarding the efficacy of the Sensaslim Spray where the basis for the representation is a clinical trial or scientific report, unless the clinical trial was conducted and is the subject of a scientific report which has been published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.
SensaSlim has attracted attention over the nature of its claims, a website that appears to use deceptive images (instances of identity theft) and its defamation action against La Trobe University academic Ken Harvey, whose action has exposed inadequacies in the policing of claims regarding products with 'therapeutic' qualities. We need more people like the courageous Dr Harvey and fewer rich - and shameless - criminals such as Foster. Now that the ACCC has acted the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), one of the more somnolent parts of the national bureaucracy despite its major responsibilities, might engage in some self-examination regarding the quack medicine regime. At the moment we are waiting for the Australian Health Ministers to adopt a more fact-based approach to what is dubbed 'complementary medicine', the subject of my AHMAC submission earlier this year regarding regulation of practitioners of 'therapies' such as 'magic touch'
