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Infringement notices - Guidelines on the use of infringement notices by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

This guide provides background information and general guidance to businesses and their advisors on the ACCC's approach to issuing infringement notices under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (the Act).

This guide is not intended to prescribe the circumstances in which the ACCC will issue infringement notices nor the manner in which it will use them.

This guide was first published in 2013. Minor updates were made in 2020.

This guide will be updated to reflect that from 1 January 2023, the value of a penalty unit will increase from $222 to $275. This change will mean that the infringement notice penalty amounts referred to on page 2 of the guide:

  • for most alleged Australian Consumer Law contraventions will increase to $16,500 for a corporation, $165,000 for a listed corporation, and $3,300 for an individual
  • for failure to comply with a substantiation notice will increase to $8,250 for a corporation and $1,650 for an individual
  • for providing false or misleading information in response to a substantiation notice will increase to $13,750 for a corporation and $2,750 for an individual.