The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) is responsible for ensuring that individuals and businesses comply with Australian competition, fair trading, and consumer protection laws.
While key ongoing priorities include addressing cartel conduct and anti-competitive conduct, the ACCC have set additional compliance and enforcement priorities to focus on throughout 2022-23.
The priorities
The ACCC will focus on:
- Consumer and fair trading issues in relation to environmental claims and sustainability.
- Consumer and fair trading issues relating to manipulative or deceptive advertising and marketing practices in the digital economy.
- Consumer and fair trading issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Competition and consumer issues arising from the pricing and selling of essential services, with a focus on energy and telecommunications.
- Empowering consumers and improving industry compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on high value goods including motor vehicles and caravans.
- Competition and consumer issues relating to digital platforms.
- Competition issues in global and domestic supply chains, particularly where they are disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Promoting competition and investigating allegations of anti-competitive conduct in the financial services sector, with a focus on payment services.
- Exclusive arrangements by firms with market power that impact competition.
- Ensuring that small businesses receive the protections of the competition and consumer laws and industry codes of conduct, including in agriculture and franchising.
- Compliance with the button battery safety standards.
- Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance, enforcement, and education initiatives.
The ACCC may also give particular consideration to a range of other matters, such as conduct that is of significant public interest or concern, or that results in substantial consumer or small business detriment.
