The tricky wording of one internet company’s advertisements has come back to bite them, and will take a bigger chunk than originally thought.

The High Court has reinstated a $2 million fine levelled at TPG for false and misleading advertisements.

The ads misleadingly claimed TPG offered its “Unlimited ADSL2+” broadband plans for $29.99 per month, when that was only possible when bundled with a $30 per month phone plan.

The original ruling was overturned in the Federal Court last year, lowering the fine to just $50,000, but the High Court has no revived the original finding.

TPG will now pay $2 million for its deceptive tactic.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims said it sets a high bar as a warning to other companies.

“Our concern was if the penalties were too low, companies would just treat them as an acceptable cost of doing business,” he said.

“We need penalties that act as a deterrent and that's what the High Court has given us out of today's finding.”

“In particular, the High Court recognised that penalties must be fixed with a view to ensuring that the penalty is not such as to be regarded by businesses as an acceptable cost of doing business,” he said in a statement.

TPG general counsel Tony Moffatt said; “It seems that the decision about whether an advertisement is misleading or not is a vexed one, not just for advertisers but also for judges.”

“We believed that our advertising was not misleading and we think it is instructive to note, as did one of the High Court Judges, that there was a dearth of any evidence of consumers having been misled despite the advertisements having been run nationally for 13 months,” his statement said.

The finding has not drastically impacted TPG’s share price.