Making sure businesses pass on any savings from the repeal of the Carbon Tax, product safety, the NBN and general anticompetitiveness will be the ACCC’s focus for the remainder of 2014, chairman Rod Sims today revealed in a speech to the Sydney Business Chamber.
“Detecting, stopping and deterring significant anti-competitive conduct is a high priority for the ACCC,” Sims said, before revealing that the consumer watchdog currently has more than 80 active investigations in the works.
“The ACCC has around 80 in-depth investigations underway, of which, virtually all are confidential,” he said.
“As a general rule, the ACCC policy is to keep investigations confidential. It does not seek to publicise specific matters and traders until an investigation is concluded and a decision has been made on whether to initiate court proceedings or take other action.”
Judging by the relative frequency with which the ACCC has been involved in the appliance and technologies industries in the recent past — with matters involving the Narta Group, Bing Lee, Harvey Norman, C0les, Apple, HP, Mitsubishi Electric and Peter McInnes (KitchenAid), among many others — it is a safe assumption that at least one of these 80 investigations will involve a company in the industry.
A good first step for those suppliers and retailers looking to avoid any such unwanted attention is to read AR’s Top 10 Tips to stay on top of Australian Consumer Law and avoid the ACCC.
What do you think about the ACCC? Are they are necessary to keep business in check or an interfering pest? Let us know in the comments below.
This author is on Twitter: @Patrickavenell