To avoid liability under section 52(1)(a) of the Competition Act mail solicitations should not be drafted in such as manner that they may cause recipients to be under the false general impression that they have won a significant prize. For example, solicitations should not include language in prominent format and in large font stating "We Will Deliver a $1,000,000 cheque" which is qualified by language "if you are declared our winner" that appear in a less conspicuous location in the document in much smaller font size.

Contest rules should be adequately and fairly disclosed to comply with section 59 of the Act.Issues arise under the Act when contest rules are disclosed in very small font size in locations of the solicitation that consumers would not likely notice them. For example, some solicitations have included the contest rules on the inside portion of the solicitation's envelope. As you can appreciate, many consumers would discard the envelope without noticing the contest rules. In other cases, contest rules have been placed on the reverse side of documents included in the solicitation without being referenced elsewhere in the solicitation.

Many solicitations state in the context of promoting a large prize, that the recipient is a guaranteed winner. This may provide recipients with the impression that they are guaranteed to receive the large prize. The solicitations, however, state in their contest rules that the odds of winning a nominal prize are 100% and that the odds of winning the large prize are remote. This raises issues in two respects. Firstly that the solicitation may provide the false general impression that the recipient has already won the large cash prize. Secondly that it is misleading to refer to a recipient as a guaranteed winner.