Wellington - A New Zealand court on Monday ordered Vodafone Plc to pay a record amount of fines for breaking fair trading laws.
An Auckland District Court judge fined the London-based multinational firm 960 000 New Zealand dollars (US$780 000) after it admitted breaching the Fair Trading Act.
The charges related to two mobile broadband marketing campaigns that falsely claimed its service was available everywhere and that its network was the largest in New Zealand.
Vodafone also failed to honour a promotion offering bonuses to customers, the court said.
The ruling followed fines of nearly 500,000 New Zealand dollars (US$406 000) imposed in 2011 for six other charges mainly relating to Vodafone's mobile internet services.
The Commerce Commission said the total penalties were a record for a single defendant under New Zealand's fair trading laws.
*Follow Fin24 on Twitter, Facebook,
Google+ and Pinterest.