Competition and Consumer Act 2010: Case Study, Breaches & Remedies

This assignment presents a case study analysis of the Australian Competition and Consumer Act 2010, examining scenarios involving potential breaches of anti-competition laws. It delves into the powers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to investigate and enforce the Act, including their authority to gather information and pursue legal action. The study further explores available remedies and penalties for violations, such as cartel conduct, including both civil and criminal liabilities. Additionally, it addresses issues related to retail discounting strategies and consumer warranties, providing insights into whether certain practices comply with legal obligations under the Act. The document concludes by emphasizing the significance of the Competition and Consumer Act in regulating market behavior and safeguarding consumer interests, highlighting Desklib as a resource for students seeking similar solved assignments and study materials.

Competition and
Consumer Law

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Question 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Question 2...............................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCE..............................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION
Most elements of business dealings, including those with (and between) suppliers, wholesalers,
retailers, competitors, and customers, are covered by the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission which is ACCC, is in charge of
enforcing the CC Act. Anticompetitive activity is addressed by the CC Act's competition laws.
Contracts, arrangements, and understandings that would considerably diminish competition or
contain exclusionary clauses or a cartel provision, as well as mergers and acquisitions that would
substantially lessen competition, are all prohibited by the Act(Competition and Consumer
Commission, 2021). Exclusive trading, especially third-line forcing, are examples of market
power abuse. The Australian Consumer Law is also included in the CC Act. It includes a number
of consumer protection provisions, such as the prohibition of misleading and deceptive conduct,
invalidation of the unfair terms in standard form consumer contracts, the provision of statutory
consumer guarantees for goods and services, the establishment of Australia's product safety
regime, and the regulation of unsolicited sales practices. The following report is going to address

the two case studies in accordance with the applicability of the anti competition regimes along
with the available remedies and breach entitled in the Act.
MAIN BODY
Question 1.
Advise Ann as to whether she would risk breaching the Competition and Consumer Act
2010, if she were to participate in Gabby’s arrangement.
Even if the conduct does not meet the stricter definitions of other anti-competitive conduct such
as cartels, Section 45 of the Competition and Consumer Act prevents contractual agreements,
arrangements, interpretations, or concerted practices which have the intent, effect, or likely effect
of significantly reducing competition in a market. The courts weigh a variety of considerations
before making a ruling. Where the very first is of that is there lays the agreement or contracted
parties caught by the Act? Agreements, contracts, arrangements, and understandings all have
identical definitions under the Act. Ultimately, they entail the creation of a plan of action
between two or more persons that may or may not be legally enforceable, but that they intend to
follow (King, 2021).
In the case of TPC v Nicholas Enterprises Pty Ltd, 1979, the court stated that "it appears to me
that each of two or more individuals incurs at least a moral obligation to act in a given way when
each of them knowingly arouses in the others an expectation that he will act in a certain way."
An agreement, as defined, is something in which the parties agree to mutual rights and
obligations. It is not essential to write anything down in order to reach an agreement or form an
arrangement. In truth, such agreements are frequently not written down. Nothing needs to be
said; a simple 'nod and wink' suffices. Furthermore, the court concluded in Top Performance
Motors Ltd v Ira Berk Pty Ltd, 1975, that an agreement requires the meeting of two or more
minds. There appears to be an understanding when the parties' views are so aligned that a
planned transaction between them proceeds on the basis of the maintenance of a specific
condition of things or the adoption of a specific course of behavior. Further for the given case
study it can be said that the acts of Ann reasonably suffice her to make liable for anti competitive
agreements under the said Act of 2010 (Milnes, 2019).

If the ACCC were to take an interest in this arrangement, what kind of powers they have
available to investigate it further.
The ACCC has broad authority to investigate cartels and can force any individual or
company to provide information, including written and verbal evidence, of alleged violations of
the law. They also have powers to obtain an investigation warrant from a judge and execute it on
the premises of the company's office and company officials. Moreover, under certain
circumstances, are also entitled to notify the Australian Federal Police to eavesdrop on
telephones and other surveillance equipment and collect evidence. In general, the ACCC jointly
and voluntarily obtains most of that information through voluntarily means. However, there are
often situations where the ACCC deems it appropriate make use of his power to get information,
documents and evidences. Section 155 of the Act is one major provision which outlines the
further guidelines for the same.
The assessment to issue section 155 notice is not taken carelessly. The ACCC uses the authority
too appropriately Investigate potential contraventions of the CCA and/or ACL resulting in
damage to competition and/or consumers. ACCC can issue section 155 Notification to parties
subject to ACCC investigation or merger Verification or to other third parties who may have
relevant information, documents, or evidence. A thorough internal review and review process
takes place prior to the appointment by the Chair or Vice-Chair before issuance of notice under
this section(Competition and Consumer Commission, 2019).
ACCC personnel consider whether information, documents, or evidence is needed and related to
the ACCC survey. Whether it is relevant information is also considered Documents or evidence
may be available in other ways, including whether they may be provided. Spontaneously, in
many cases, including the majority of informal merger reviews, the ACCC requires that
information be provided voluntarily before relying on their section 155 power. Moreover, ACC
is also embodied with the powers of referring the serious cartel conduct for the purpose of
prosecutions where it seems possible. They work closely with the CDPP which is the
commonwealth director of public prosecutions with respect to the investigations of the serious
cartels.

If the ACCC were to find those Special Designs, Forever Floral, Roses and more and
Gabby were in breach of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, what kind of remedies or
penalties might they seek?
The new Cartel administration is quite a bit as it enforces both the criminal as well as civil
liability of Cartel's behavior, but in the previous section, only civil punishment is permitted.
Criminal penalties are created under S 45AG and S45AF where penalties can be greater than the
value of total benefits acquired by the act or the other way can be of the 10% of the total annual
turnover of the corporation. Civil penalties apply under s 45AJ and s 45AK, and do not involve
the proof of fault, as exists for the criminal provisions(Paull and Hennig, 2018).The CCA bans
the formation of cartels under the civil law and declares it as a criminal crime to bring it to the
corporate or individual. Individuals who have been criminated by Cartel may be exposed to
criminal or civil sanctions, and companies may belong to any criminal monopolistic criminal
crimes or civilian representatives. Individuals established for guilt of Cartel may be exposed to
offenders or spatial penalty, including maximum 500,000 financial fines per civil representative.
It is illegal that the company freezes from legal expenses and financial fines.
Other promotion forms related to criminal criminals include tentative arrangements,
enterprise management and orders for disqualifying people from orders for community services.
For companies, all detective cartel crimes or the largest fine or financial fines for the citizen
administration (depending on what apply) is high of $ 10,000,000 three times or more of the
benefits received by one or more people are appropriate for attacks or injuries that can not
completely determine the service. 10% of the annual sales of companies for the past 12 months.
Section 155specifies the failure to follow the notice which may result in penalties. Courts can
impose up to $ 22,200 or two years' imprisonment for individuals and up to $ 111,000 for
businesses. As per Section 87B, the court may order a person to pay the Commonwealth an

amount equal to the monetary benefit directly or indirectly received by the person who may be
the result of the breach (Grundy, et.al., 2018).
Question 2
Advise Gamma as to her options for challenging Princess Hair’s discounting under the
Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
Retail market segment cannot identify single player advantage. There are many players in this
fast-growing space, and the market is thriving by offering discounts and transactions that
consumers actually benefit from. Low prices are generally regarded as an advantage of
successful competition. Such a popular example could be the significant discounts offered by
Flipkart. This does not prevent other players from entering the market and not offering similar
discounts. During the same period that the Big Billion Day Sale took place, Snapdeal and
Amazon offered significant discounts on merchandise sold through the web portal as a
marketplace. Is this practice essentially to prevent the competition and abuse of dominant
positions by players. The answer to this can be, No the web portal did not work to harm other
players in the same room. The discounts offered by one person did not lead to a "significant
obstacle to competition." On the contrary, multiple players offered similar discounts at the same
time. The predatory pricing issue should not occur here as it is not a problem where the dominant
player kills competitors and prevents new players from entering (Claassen and Gerbrandy, 2018).
The sustainability of pricing strategies and financing of discounts should also be considered in
the long run in order to establish competitive prices compared to online web portals. For the time
being, the pricing strategies of these online retailers were designed for a limited period of one to
three days. Even in the physical market, this may not be anti-competitive, as clearance sales and
significant discounts can be part of the transaction. Similarly, the discounts offered do not
constitute anti-competitive behavior in the above given case scenario.

Advise Jake as to whether either of these requests to Princess Hair would comply with his
legal obligations under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010
Consumer Warranty is a set of rules that apply to goods and services purchased by consumers
under the ACL. These rules set out when businesses need to provide remedies to consumers.
Consumer Warranties are automatically applied regardless of the voluntary or extended warranty
by the seller or manufacturer of the goods or services, or whether such warranty has expired. An
individual or business is considered a consumer if: Buy goods or services for less than $ 100,000
Goods or services cost over $ 100,000, but are usually the type purchased for home, or personal
use or consumption. Goods are commercial road vehicles or trailers that are primarily used to
transport goods on public roads, If sells to a customer a product that does not meet one or more
consumer warranties, it is entitled to repair, replacement, refund, and reimbursement for any
resulting damages, depending on the circumstance(Buberis, 2020). In general, if the problem is
minor, the seller may choose to fix the problem with a stand-in, repair, or refund. If someone
chooses to fix it and it takes too long, the consumer either hires someone to fix the setback and
asks you to pay a rational cost or rejects the item. You can get a full repayment or exchange.
CONCLUSION
From the following report it can be concluded that the competition and consumer Act of 2010 is
one of the major legislation in the country which governs as well as takes care of anti
competitive activities being carried out by the individuals and other corporate bodies in the
market. The said report also ascertains the various given contentions related to the case scenario
with respect to the acts of Ann along with the powers of ACCC to investigate into the related
matters. The other case scenario also ascertains the fact that excessive discounts given by the

retails to some extent can result as an act violating the provisions of the competition and
consumer act of Australia.
REFERENCE
Competition, A. and Consumer Commission, 2021. Airline competition in Australia.
King, S.P., 2021. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Proposed Merger
Reforms. Available at SSRN 3948278.
Milnes, M., 2019. Consumer law: ACCC gains momentum in its push for higher consumer law
penalties. LSJ: Law Society of NSW Journal, (61), pp.84-85.
Competition, A. and Consumer Commission, 2019. Digital platforms inquiry.
Council, M., 2021. Commonwealth of Australia.
Paull, J. and Hennig, B., 2018. Maps of Organic Agriculture in Australia. Journal of
organics, 5(1), pp.29-39.
Grundy, Q.,et.al., 2018. Decoding disclosure: Comparing conflict of interest policy among the
United States, France, and Australia. Health Policy, 122(5), pp.509-518.
Claassen, R. and Gerbrandy, A., 2018. Doing good together: Competition law and the political
legitimacy of interfirm cooperation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 28(4), pp.401-425.
Buberis, P., 2020. Good Faith. In Australian Franchising Code of Conduct. Emerald Publishing
Limited.