Competition and Consumer Law
Australia’s competition and consumer laws affect all businesses.
With active regulators and complex regulatory frameworks to navigate, it is vital that companies understand their obligations and work with a trusted legal adviser to help them achieve business objectives in a way that also supports compliance and mitigates regulatory risk.
For companies that need assistance successfully navigating complex competition and consumer law issues, such as unfair contract terms, misleading and deceptive conduct, merger clearance, or ensuring marketing remains compliant with restrictions on comparative advertising, greenwashing and pricing claims, we can help.
How we can help
Our competition lawyers have significant expertise advising clients on all aspects of competition law and compliance with Australian consumer law, including misleading and deceptive conduct.
We provide practical and strategic legal advice on all areas of the law falling within the scope of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA), as well as the regulatory frameworks governed by the ACCC and state-based consumer affairs authorities.
As specialist competition lawyers, we advise clients in highly regulated markets (such as the electricity, ports and telecommunications sectors) on anti-competitive behaviour, market intervention and regulatory enforcement. We understand that when it comes to interpreting competition and consumer law regulations, clarity and commerciality of advice is essential. We manage regulatory obligations and issues in a way that lets organisations maintain a 'business as usual' approach.
What we do
Our competition and consumer law team advises on the following:
- ACCC and regulator dealings, including acting in ACCC investigations and advising on notifications, authorisations, prosecutions and immunity arrangements.
- advising on merger clearance, including informal merger notifications and acting for clients on corporate transactions in highly concentrated markets. This includes assisting clients avoid contravention of the gun-jumping prohibitions through the implementation of clean team measures.
- pricing issues, market allocation and collusion matters, including dealing with the ACCC and international regulatory authorities on competition, cartel or antitrust investigations.
- franchising agreements and transactions in relation to transaction businesses, including preparation of the various documents required under the Franchising Code of Conduct.
- consumer law, including advising on marketing and distribution practices, unfair contract terms, consumer guarantees, returns policies and warranties, product labelling, country and region of origin, and other consumer protection issues. This includes those matters falling within the remit of state-based consumer affairs authorities such as Consumer Affairs Victoria and Fair Trading NSW.
- compliance with mandatory and non-mandatory Codes of Conduct under the CCA, such as the Dairy Code of Conduct and the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.
- misleading and deceptive conduct, and false and misleading representations, including issues in advertising and marketing representations, drip pricing, bait advertising and other unfair practices under the competition legislation.
- access arrangements and pricing matters in relation to regulated infrastructure and declared services.
- compliance matters, including developing and implementing formal competition and consumer compliance programs for employees and management.
To help our clients proactively avoid competition and consumer law issues, we design and deliver compliance training programs, hold informative seminars and provide updates on regulatory issues that have the potential to affect our clients’ businesses and profitability.
Our competition and consumer law experience
- Acted for an industry association and representatives on developing and implementing an online platform that provided its members (and the general public) with a range of information relating to dairy products, including for example, aggregated data relating to farm-gate prices, to provide transparency to the Australian dairy industry. We also advised the association on privacy and data related aspects of the platform (including data transfer aspects), as well as potential competition law risks as the data had some relevance to pricing. We are also now doing escrow agreements with the technology vendor.
- Assisting various professional sporting bodies with lodging a successful collective bargaining notification with the ACCC to facilitate the collective negotiation for live music licenses from APRA (OneMusic).
- Acted for various dairy processors in relation to transitioning their milk supply agreements in light of the adoption of the industry wide Dairy Code. We also assisted the processors in dealing with the ACCC in respect of its subsequent market inquiries to assess compliance by various dairy processors.
- Acting for Tyre Stewardship Australia in relation to the authorisation of its national product stewardship scheme. The objective of the scheme is to promote the environmentally sound use and disposal of used tyres. We successfully obtained authorisation of aspects of the scheme by the ACCC. We are currently acting in relation to a revocation and substitution of the current authorisation which is being driven by legislative changes which will regulate product stewardship schemes going forward.
- Advising a number of parties on the applicability of the CCA to IP commercialisation contracts and arrangements, including contracts relating to the commercialisation of rights under the Plant Breeders Rights Act 1994 (Cth) and Trade Marks Act 1995 (Cth) and generally in relation to commercialisation of new plant varieties.
- Acting for a client in Australian Competition Tribunal proceedings seeking review of a decision by the ACCC to grant authorisation in connection with potential cartel and other possible anticompetitive conduct.
- Advising a well-known foreign company and its Australian subsidiary in relation to competition law matters arising out of a $35 million subcontracting / outsourcing arrangement which was entered into with a competitor. We also assisted the same client in relation to a subsequent ACCC investigation.
- Providing advice to various organisations on the scope and applicability of the ‘joint venture defence’ to the cartel provisions under the CCA.
- Advising a global cosmetics brand on misleading and deceptive advertising, risk management and compliance associated with product packaging, disclaimers, branding, marketing materials and social media statements.
- Successfully obtaining merger clearance with the ACCC in respect of a merger between two competing solvent distribution businesses. We prepared submissions and engaged with the ACCC to obtain a successful result for our client.
- Advising a national industry association and its members on Australian Consumer Law issues and presenting training on competition and consumer law compliance at the national conference.
- Advising an Italian cruise ship company on Australian consumer law issues including undertaking a compliance review of all marketing, advertising, website and social media materials.
- Defending prosecutions:
- acting in defence of an ACCC prosecution for misleading and deceptive conduct by a telecommunication service provider.
- defending an abalone industry operator in Federal Court proceedings by the ACCC for cartel behaviour.
- defending Ampol Petroleum for price fixing.
