J&J charges L'Oreal with false sunscreen claims

Johnson & Johnson today sued L'Oreal in a New York court, charging that the French cosmetics company had made misleading claims of superiority of one of its sunscreen products allegedly using false sun protection statistics.

J&J's lawsuit charges that in promoting its Anthelios SX sunscreen moisturizer, L'Oreal claimed that the product provided far superior protection from harmful ultra-violet A, or UVA rays, than sunscreen products sold by J&J's Neutrogena unit in spite of test results to the contrary.

A L'Oreal spokeswoman, Jennie James, said the suit had just been filed and the company had no immediate comment.

The suit claims that independent third-party testing showed that J&J's products had dramatically higher PVA values than those reported in L'Oreal's promotional materials. PVA value is the measure of protection against UVA rays.

For example, L'Oreal's promotion says Neutrogena Ultra Sheer SPF 55 has a PVA value of 5.94 when independent testing put the score at between 18.3 and 20.8, J&J said in the court papers.

According to the papers filed in US District Court for Southern District of New York, J&J is seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions ordering L'Oreal to stop using promotional material containing, what J&J charges are false claims, and to issue corrective advertisements to all who received the misleading materials.

J&J is also asking the court to award it triple damages of L'Oreal profit "derived from their unlawful conduct" as well as damages to account for all J&J expenditures required to correct "the false, misleading, unfair and disparaging" descriptions of its products.

The diversified health care products company, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, is also asking that L'Oreal be forced to pay punitive damages and J&J's legal costs.

The suit claims that by making false statements to health care professionals about J&J products, "L'Oreal threatens to damage severely the reputation and marketability of those products because doctors may no longer believe plaintiffs' sunscreens properly protect against harmful UVA rays, when in fact they do."

The J&J sunscreen products in question generate more than US$100 million ($153.7 million) in annual US sales.

"Unless L'Oreal is ordered to cease making its false and misleading claims and issue corrective advertising, plaintiffs stand to suffer a loss of its hard-earned sales, goodwill, and consumer and physician confidence that they may never be able to recoup," the suit charges.

- REUTERS