French company Carrefour SA, the second-largest retailer in the world behind Wal-Mart, has been fined $2.7 million by a French regional court for:

below-cost selling in certain situations;

illegal collusion with suppliers;

advertising prices on products which were later not sold at that price in the stores;

promoting products with special prices, but not having sufficient quantities of the product at retail locations to meet demand

advertising products which did not match the description in the company’s sales catalog.

Commentary: Quite a shopping list of violations (yes, lousy pun intended). While the fine is tiny considering the size of Carrefour, what must be of particular annoyance to the company is the court’s requirement that this ruling be hung AT ALL THE CHECKOUT REGISTERS of Carrefour’s 213 hypermarkets spread across France. That alone could be motivation for Carrefour to appeal.