(Reuters) - New Zealand's competition watchdog will file criminal charges against Woolworths' local unit, as well as Pak'nSave's Silverdale and Mill Street stores, alleging inaccurate pricing by the supermarkets, the regulator said on Tuesday.
The supermarkets' alleged inaccurate pricing and misleading specials may have breached the country's Fair Trading Act, according to the New Zealand Commerce Commission.
"Supermarkets have long been on notice about the importance of accurate and clear pricing and specials, and we're not satisfied with the continuing issues we're seeing across the industry," NZCC Deputy Chair Anne Callinan said.
Woolworths New Zealand said in a statement that it has been working with the NZCC on its investigations for some time and will review the legal proceedings once they are filed.
"We know how important it is that our customers can trust that the prices we advertise, or have on our shelf labels, are what they pay at the checkout. But sometimes errors occur," Woolworths NZ's Managing Director Spencer Sonn said.
Australia's top grocer Woolworths, along with peer Coles , has already been battling a similar lawsuit on misleading discounting claims by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The retailers' cooperative Foodstuffs, which owns Pak'nSave along with several other domestic grocery chains, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Aaditya Govind Rao in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
