The Costa Rican Ministry of Economy (MEIC) ordered the Wyndham Hotel to put an end to a promotion they had been running in social media in which they offered a 10% discount to those who arrived to their Mother’s Day Gastronomy Festival in an Uber.

The notification was received by Gustavo Araya, CEO of Wyndham, on August 17, Araya made clear that the promotion in reference was valid only for Mother’s Day (August 15), and it is no longer available; however, he also said the company would not stop doing promotions involving Uber.

This is tthe promotion in question:

On August 9, the President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis, pronounced about the illegality of the Uber service in the country and said “The Ministry of Economy,Industry and Commerce in compliance with Law No. 7472, Promotion of Competition and Effective Defense of the Consumer, must carry out the legal actions that correspond to promotions and offers over the illegal people transportation services that are promoted by different companies throughout the territory”.

Araya questioned that those that should determine whether an act is or not forbidden should be the court and not just any department in the Ministry. “When we receive a notification from the court stating that we broke the law then I will comply”, he concluded.

The notification received ordered Wyndham to stop the promotion, and gave them a three day term to comply. Gustavo Araya posted a photo of the notification on Twitter and expressed “I just got this notification. I have so many questions that 140 will not be enough”; on a different post he also commented, “I have never defended Uber, (they don’t need me they have good lawyers), but violating my rights, that’s a different story!”

Apparently the Wyndham Hotel was not the only business affected by this, the MEIC, confirmed that they had formally notified of the possible sanctions to a group of businesses, among them restaurants, spas and hotels.
The notification states that if the business does not comply they could expose themselves to a procedure in the Consumers Commission that could end up with fines of 10 to 40 times the base salary (currently of ¢426,200)

 

8. Ya es suficiente . Yo nunca he defendido a Uber (no me necesitan tiene buenos abogados) pero atropellar mis derechos es otra cosa !! https://t.co/PWHfZkXjeU

— Gustavo Araya (@gusaraya) August 17, 2017