The latest Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Journal has been issued this week. The ACCC Journal is a bi-monthly ACCC publication.
The current issue covers the reporting period May – June 2001. The material is presented to inform readers of current developments in trade practices law and administration. This issue summarises the 26 July 2001 changes to the Trade Practices Act 1974.
The ACCC has a role in the increasingly electronic nature of commerce and conduct in Australia. It has recently made two submissions on domain name policy to the second Public Consultation Report of the auDA Name Policy Advisory Panel and to the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s 2nd Public Consultation on Domain Name Registration. The Journal carries edited versions of these submissions.
It also contains edited versions of four speeches presented at the Australian Law Reform Commission’s conference on Penalties: policy, principles and practice in government regulation held in June 2001.
The speeches were presented by ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, ACCC Commissioner, Mr Sitesh Bhojani, the ACCC’s Queensland Regional Director, Mr Alan Ducret, and Ms Debra A Valentine, until recently General Counsel at the US Federal Trade Commission.
Mr Ducret presented Courts – their role in regulatory arrangements. Mr Ducret discussed negotiated penalties. This is a process whereby the ACCC and respondent agree on the level of pecuniary penalty that ought to be imposed, and jointly recommend that penalty to the court in civil cases. The court is not obliged to accept the recommendation. The court is at liberty to question and probe the recommendation, and to impose whatever penalty it sees as appropriate.
He also discusses the ACCC’s leniency policy in relation to cartels, which allows people and/or corporations who come to the ACCC to expose such activity, to obtain a form of immunity, that is, the ACCC will not take action. Immunity will not be granted to the ringleaders in a cartel, but those who cooperate with the ACCC should receive the benefit of a lower penalty.
Subscriptions for ACCC Journal are now available in print or on CDROM for $75 per calendar year and can be obtained through the Publishing Unit at the ACCC. Single copies are available for $10.