The China Consumer's Association (CAA) expressed confidence yesterday that it will be able to meet a legal challenge mounted by three trade companies in Beijing.

Beijing Dubeier Trade Ltd and two other trading companies, which sell Superior, Baian and Muze computers - all of which were found to exceed the national radiation maximum limit - sued CAA on September 9 last year for alleged infringement of their reputation, calling for compensation of 3 million yuan (US$363,000).

The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court accepted the case, holding its first hearing on Tuesday.

The plaintiffs were willing to achieve a settlement through conciliation which was proposed by the court, but the CAA could not agree to an out-of-court settlement.

CAA organized a commodity comparison experiment of China-made computers from April to July last year. Its staff posed as ordinary customers and bought 20 brands of China-made computers from markets in cities around the country, including Beijing and Nanjing, the capital of East China's Jiangsu Province.

A test conducted for the CAA by the National Computer Testing Centre showed that nine of the 20 selected brands exceeded the maximum radiation limit.

CAA then released the results of its investigation, revealing the nine harmful brands to the public.

Ding Shihe, assistant to the CAA secretary-general, said, according to the country's Law on Protecting Consumers' Rights and Interests, it is lawful for consumers' organizations to undertake social supervision.

"CAA's commodity comparison experiment carried out its public supervision of actions that damage the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and did not deliberately smear the reputation of anybody," said Qiu Baochang, CAA lawyer. "The three companies are not the producers of the computers anyway and have nothing to do with the question of reputation."

Qiu said the producers of the three brands of computers refused to be added as plaintiffs, "although they should be more proper plaintiffs, they know pretty clear it's a losing game for them."

The plaintiffs were not available for comment.

The court was unable to deliver its verdict on Tuesday, but the final decision is expected to be reached soon.

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