Luv-A-Duck fined $360,000 for falsely advertising its products as free range Luv-A-Duck has been fined $360,000 for falsely advertising its products were free range. A VICTORIAN poultry company has been fined $360,000 for falsely advertising its products were free range. Luv-A-Duck claimed the 80,000 ducks it sold weekly were "range reared and grain fed" in the "spacious Victorian Wimmera Wheatlands." In reality, the ducks didn't spend a minute outside their barn. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched Federal Court action against the company in March. It sought declarations, injunctions, pecuniary penalties and orders that Luv-a-Duck implement a trade practices compliance program. In a judgment handed down today, Justice Jennifer Davies said Luv-A-Duck had admitted engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct on a series of advertising and promotional material. "Luv-A-Duck has admitted that when it made the representations it knew, including by senior management, the conditions in which the ducks were raised," she said. The company has put unchallenged evidence before the court to the effect that it was not the intention of Luv-a-Duck to mislead consumers. Company director Theresa Sfetkidis told the court she never believed "range reared" could be understood to mean "free range." "She also deposed that Luv-A-Duck did not intend to convey that the ducks were free range and that, had it been appreciated that the words were capable of that representation, the statements would never have been made," Justice Davies said. She said the ACCC had accepted that the contravening conduct was not deliberate. The company, one of the largest poultry suppliers in the country, faced maximum penalties in excess of $1 million. But the court accepted the $360,000 penalty agreed between Luv-A-Duck and the ACCC. It also ordered the company contribute $15,000 to the ACCC's costs, implement a compliance program and publish a range of corrective advertising. In July, another major poultry producer was forced to defend its treatment of chickens after it was found falsely advertising that birds were "free to roam" in large barns. In that case the Federal Court ruled that Baiada and Bartter Enterprises printed false, misleading and deceptive statements on Steggles brand packaging and advertisements. The ACCC alleged that each bird had, on average, floor space of less than the size of an A4 sheet of paper.