Taiwanese fair-trade officials are to investigate claims that Samsung paid to have negative reviews of rival HTC posted online.
It is believed the South-Korean firm hired students to post poor reviews of HTC's phone products online.
Fair trade officials have launched the probe following multiple complaints highlighting the issue. If found guilty of 'false advertising', Samsung could face fines of up to 25m Taiwanese dollars (£547,000).
The claims were fuelled by PC Advisor, which published documents, which appear to show Samsung hiring students to praise the firm and its products, whilst criticising HTC.
Whilst initially unaware of the investigation, Samsung Taiwan has since posted a statement in response to the claims on its Facebook page, stating it had "ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments".
"The recent incident was unfortunate, and occurred due to insufficient understanding of these fundamental principles," the statement continued.
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