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It happened in New Zealand. Via NZ Herald, March 26:

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the maker of Ribena, has been fined NZ $217,500 after admitting it has misled customers about the vitamin C content of the blackcurrant drink. View video clip on NZ TV ONE here.

The company appeared in Auckland District Court to face charges alleging 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act. It admitted that its cartoned Ready To Drink Ribena, which it claimed had 7mg of Vitamin C per 100ml, in fact had no detectable Vitamin C content.

The company also admitted it may have misled customers in advertisements saying the blackcurrants in Ribena syrup had four times the Vitamin C of oranges.

Besides the fine, Judge Phil Gittos also ordered GlaxoSmithKline to place half-page corrective advertisements in the Herald, Dominion Post, the Press and Otago Daily Times.

Debunked by 17-year-olds

Incredibly, the Ribena bluff was exposed by 17-year-old Pakuranga College students, Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, who investigated into the vitamin C levels of the popular drink for a school project three years ago -- using college lab facilities. View video here.

NZ's TV ONE described it as the students' "thirst for knowledge that leads to court".

When the girls discovered that the level of Vitamin C for Ribena seemed too low compared to what was advertised, they took their observations to GSK.

In the letter emailed to GSK, the girls described GSK's advertising as "intentionally misleading and quite inappropriate". They got no reply.

The girls then telephoned the company, but again, they received no reply.

Undeterred, the girls contacted the Advertising Standards Authority, and Brandpower, a brand advertising service company. Again, the girls didn't receive convincing response, said NZ Herald.

It was then that the television consumer affairs show, Fair Go on TV ONE in October 2004, picked up the story and suggested the girls take their findings to the Commerce Commission, which turned it into a court case.

View video of the Commerce Commission spokesperson's take on the case, and hear the keyword: Misleading conduct.

The Ribena drink has sales of about $8 million a year in NZ, and a worldwide turnover of more than NZ$61 billion, second only to drug giant Pfizer.

GSK Malaysia also advertised its Ribena drink as having 4 times more vitamin C than oranges, on its Malaysian website here. Scientific fact aside, we need to know Malaysia's stock of Ribena really contains 4 times more vitamin C than the regular orange.

GSK needs to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, its ownership of that creative license about blackcurrant.