ACCC begins consultation on procedural rules in telecommunications regulation
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today began consultation on a set of Procedural Rules to apply to the Telecommunications specific regulatory provisions under the Trade Practices Act 1974. Submissions on the rules are due by 23 June 2008.
The rules will apply to various telecommunications specific processes including access undertakings, access dispute resolution, declaration inquiries, pricing principles inquiries and exemption applications.
The rules will enable the ACCC to determine and enforce its own procedures, avoid delays, and respond to changing activities and strategies employed within the industry. In making the rules the ACCC intends to promote timeliness and certainty in its decision making and to create uniform processes for both access providers and access seekers.
To this end, the rules establish streamlined processes for assessing access undertaking applications, submission of confidential information, information handling and, among other things, allow modifications and variations of a minor nature to be made with greater ease and efficiency.
The procedural rules, an accompanying draft explanatory statement and a related discussion paper will be available on the ACCC's website.
The procedural rule-making power was introduced to address concerns that the telecommunications specific provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974 did not provide the ACCC with sufficient discretion to determine its own procedures, to avoid delays and to respond to changing activities and strategies in the industry. The ACCC's rule-making power is intended to be broad in scope so that the ACCC can deal comprehensively with the procedures to apply to it and third parties.
The rules are intended to confirm the scope of the ACCC's existing discretion in relation to the exercise of its powers and the performance of its functions in respect of the telecommunications specific provisions. They are also intended to provide greater certainty about the procedures and practices that will apply to the ACCC's exercise of its powers.
