The Warehouse has been fined $234,000 by the district court for selling a toy that failed several small part safety tests conducted by the Commerce Commission. Photo / NZME/Supplied
The Warehouse has been fined $234,000 by the district court for selling a toy that failed several small part safety tests conducted by the Commerce Commission. Photo / NZME/Supplied
The Warehouse has been fined $234,000 for selling a potentially dangerous toy that it claims is “safe”.
The District Court issued Warehouse Ltd with the penalty today for selling “Roo Crew Take-Apart Vehicle” toys, which failed several small part safety tests.
The Warehouse chief merchandise officer Carrie Fairleysaid the toy had always been “safe” and no child had been injured by it.
However, the Commerce Commission head of fair trading and product safety investigations, Simon Pope, said the product contained multiple small parts that it argued presented a choking risk to children under 36 months.
“Multiple parts came off each variation of the toy, and they failed small parts testing,” Pope said.
Fairley said the commission’s key grievance was the packaging, not the toy itself.
“It related specifically to an image of a child who appeared to be under 3 years old, despite our clear and prominent age warnings on the packaging,” she said.
“We are grateful that the court reached the same view on this.”
She said the commission pursued the matter for more than two years, even though The Warehouse removed the “safe toy” from sale immediately.
The Warehouse previously issued a voluntary recall notice for the toy.
“What is disappointing is that over that time, countless toys have been sold to Kiwi families by offshore online retailers, which have been shown to fall seriously short of New Zealand’s product safety requirements.
“The Warehouse has, and always will, treat the safety of our customers as a non‑negotiable priority," Fairley said.
A product safety recall was issued for the Roo Crew Take-Apart Vehicle. Photo / Supplied
Pope said while the toys carried some warnings, they were labelled and marketed for use by children aged 36 months or under.
“Our investigation also found the toys were displayed in an aisle with other toys suitable for children aged 5 and under,” Pope said.
He said toys designed, manufactured, labelled, or marketed for use by children under the age of 3 must comply with the product safety standard under the Fair Trading Act.
This means they cannot have small parts or parts that could come off during play because of the choking hazard this presents.
“The commission formed the view that the Roo Crew Toy was for use by children under 3 and therefore needed to comply with the standard.
“We take our role in enforcing the standard seriously, and will act where we see non-compliance, which can have dire consequences,” Pope said.
He said businesses should take steps to ensure the products they supply comply with legal requirements.
Any labelling applied to the toy must align with the age appropriateness of the toy.
The commission’s lawyer Jacob Barry told the Auckland District Court last year the case exposed a flaw in The Warehouse’s quality assurance systems.
“We’ve got frankly one of the largest toy retailers in the country that sold more than 12,000 potentially dangerous products into the market over a period of two years, all because of an error of judgment,” Barry said.
He said in many respects, The Warehouse didn’t think it had done much wrong.
The commission encourages anyone who still has one of the products to return them for a full refund.
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