Two New Zealand schoolgirls succesfully take on multinational company in the courts...

A go-getting international company taken to the cleaners because of claims disproved by two teenaged schoolgirls in New Zealand.

Three years ago two New Zealand high school students used a science laboratory experiment to test the claims that the popular ready to drink RIBENA, a blackcurrant based drink,had more vitamin C than oranges - it didn’t. The fact was it was extremely doubtful if it had any!

As a consequence the giant international company GlaxoSmithKline, found itself in a New Zealand courtroom recently, and was subsequently fined nearly NZ$250,000 for false advertising.

The greatest irony was that this company was born nearly 100 years ago in a dried milk factory in New Zealand’s hinterland near Palmerston North in the North Island. It became firstly an infant food producer in the days before pasteurisation of milk; this company was then Joseph Nathan Ltd, spreading to Britain and becoming a leader with the brandname “Glaxo”. The company later became Glaxo Laboratories and involved in pharmaceuticals before merging with SmithKlineBeecham in 2000, and becoming GlaxoSmithKline, the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world.

In 2007 it met its fate for false advertising, from the efforts of two young teenaged schoolgirls from New Zealand. These girls have not received any rewards apart from their successful laboratory experiment. The size of a company does not reserve it special treatment here in New Zealand. The prosecution was after penalties of millions of dollars.