The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) works to enhance the welfare of Australians by promoting competition and fair trading and regulating national infrastructure.
This report highlights the range of activities engaged in by the ACCC to achieve its purpose in the December 2019 quarter, including:
- enforcing competition laws in relation to cartel conduct, anti-competitive agreements, misuse of market power and mergers that substantially lessen competition
- protecting consumers from unfair business practices and unsafe products
- regulating national services, infrastructure and markets with limited competition or natural monopoly characteristics
- studying, monitoring and reporting on competition and consumer issues in specific markets and industries
- advocacy and collaboration to promote competition and fair trading.
Key enforcement outcomes for the quarter included:
- $125 million in penalties against Volkswagen, the largest penalty ever awarded under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL)
- $6.4 million in penalties against Optus for making misleading claims about home internet disconnections to consumers
- $4.165 in penalties against training college Unique, bringing total penalties in our VET fee-help actions to date to $35.165 million
- the first enforcement outcome in a concerted practices case, with the ACCC accepting court-enforceable undertakings from two Sydney roofing companies following the use of industry social media groups to discuss pricing in a manner than was likely to contravene the attempted price-fixing provisions
- payment of fourteen infringement notices by nine traders
- court-enforceable undertakings made by five traders
- instituting proceedings against TasPorts, the first case taken by the ACCC under the new misuse of market power provision, amended in response to the Harper Review of Australia’s competition laws.
Key outcomes in the agriculture sector included:
- Coles agreeing to pay Norco Co-operative Limited around $5.25 million for distribution to its dairy farmer members
- the announcement of the introduction of a mandatory dairy industry code, which came into effect from 1 January 2020.
The ACCC released a consultation paper regarding the Consumer Data Right (CDR) in the banking sector, seeking views on how best to permit the use of intermediaries in the CDR ecosystem and how to provide for the disclosure of CDR data to non-accredited third parties.
The ACCC made a number of merger decisions, including deciding not to oppose the proposed acquisition of GrainCorp Liquid Terminals Australia Pty Ltd by ANZ Terminals Pty Ltd, subject to divestments.
The ACCC authorised changes to the Australian Banking Association’s Banking Code of Practice for five years, subject to conditions.
The ACCC commenced inquiries into NBN wholesale pricing and home loan pricing.
The ACCC released a decision not to object to proposed Australia Post price increases.
The ACCC collaborated regularly on national product safety issues with the Department of Infrastructure (for motor vehicle safety), the Department of Health, the Department of Home Affairs and Australian Border Force. The ACCC also worked with state and territory ACL regulators, electrical safety and gas safety regulators on a range of recall and consumer product safety issues.
The ACCC engaged with the Treasury and Department of Innovation, Industry and Science to communicate the ACCC’s views on regulatory reform proposals for country of origin labelling for complementary healthcare products. The ACCC also worked with state and territory ACL regulators to facilitate a consistent compliance approach for country of origin labelling via an information sharing process.
The ACCC released a number of publications during the quarter, including the following:
- the Customer Loyalty Schemes final report
- monitoring reports on petrol, container stevedoring and bulk grain ports
- an update on potential competition issues with e-SIMs in Australia
- a Measuring Broadband Australia program performance report
- an e-conveyancing market reform paper
- a paper seeking views on the key issues affecting markets for tradeable water rights in the Murray–Darling Basin
- the third report of the electricity market monitoring inquiry
- an interim report for the Northern Australia Insurance Inquiry.
The ACCC engaged with competition and consumer protection counterparts on a range of matters, including collaborating with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Commission to colead the 2019 OECD global awareness campaign on product recalls.