Lawyers commented on the Armata advertising scandal

Yesterday it became known that the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia asked Mail.Ru Group explain the mention of the Great Patriotic War in a video game advertisement. We have contacted the lawyers for comment.

FAS was confused by the commercial of the game “Armored Warfare: Armata project”, which uses the slogan “Your grandfather liberated the world, your father protected the world, what will you do?”. The service had a fear that he was violating the law “On Advertising”

Most likely, we are talking about a possible discrepancy with the fifth article of the law, which lists general requirements for advertising. More precisely, the sixth paragraph of the fifth article, according to which it is not necessary to use offensive comparisons in relation to cultural heritage objects in advertising.

The law itself does not prohibit the use of images of the Great Patriotic War.

But even here everything is not smooth. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the Great Patriotic War is not mentioned in the advertisement. It is only hinted at. Second, it is difficult to call the war a cultural heritage.

How serious can the consequences of this check be?

According to the representatives of the law firm ”Vetrov and Partners“, if the FAS comes to the conclusion of a violation of the law, the company faces “bringing to administrative responsibility for violating the advertising legislation, issuing an order to eliminate the violations identified (in fact, making appropriate changes to the game itself)”. Plus, of course, a fine that ranges from 100-500 thousand per legal entity.

It is officially reported that the request to the FAS was inspired by a private person, but Mail.Ru Group believes that they owe it to their competitors. They say that they arranged an appeal, which speaks of the negative reflection of the Great Patriotic War in advertising.

However, according to the representatives of “Winds and Partners”, “it is from individuals that most of these appeals come. There are a lot of them.”

Plus, it should be understood that part of Russian society has a special attitude towards the Great Patriotic War. Invented by them Mail.Ru The group slogan might seem blasphemous (comparing a real war with participation in game battles). Therefore, the version with a private initiative seems to us still more fair.