JB Hi Fi is a fully owned subsidiary of JB Hi-Fi Limited (an ASX listed company).
JB Hi Fi has provided a section 87B Undertaking to the ACCC following allegations that it entered into an agreement that may have contravened section 45 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (the Act) on the basis that the agreement included an exclusionary provision.
It is alleged that JB Hi-Fi paid (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Satisfaction), a small-sized CD/DVD retailer in Ballarat, $150,000 to close its business and instructed its Solicitors to prepare a Restriction Agreement which it ultimately entered into with Satisfaction. This Restriction Agreement required that Satisfaction close its store and remain out of the market for 2 years, as well as containing a term requiring Satisfaction to arrange with the lessor not to re-let the premises to another CD/DVD retailer for 1 year.
JB Hi Fi has undertaken that it will not, for a period of 3 years, enter into any contract, arragnement or understanding with any person with whom it is (or is likely to be) in comeptition to the effect that the person will cease trading, unless that contract, arragnement or understanding would not contravene section 45 of the Act.
JB Hi Fi has also undertaken to extend its current compliance program - which was given to the ACCC under a section 87B Undertaking signed in December 2006, covering only Part V of the Act - to include Part IV of the Act.
