In the lead-up to the introduction of the carbon tax on July 1, there has been considerable focus on the potential for price gouging – inflating prices beyond the cost increases reasonably attributable to the tax. In recent days, this has been fuelled by a letter sent to small business from the opposition, urging them […]
Author Archives: Julie Clarke
Trust the market – why regulation won’t stop carbon tax gouging Price-gouging might occur under the carbon tax regime, but market discipline will keep it in check. Flickr/dmcneil Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has announced that the government will provide the competition watchdog with almost $13 million in extra funding to tackle carbon tax-related price-gouging. In this […]
Today marks the first day the long-awaited criminal cartel laws enter force in Australia. The news laws create new civil and criminal offences for engaging in cartel conduct. Cartel participants now risk up to 10 years jail for making or giving effect to cartel provisions, defined (in s 44ZZRD(2)!) to include price-fixing (this replaces s […]
The Trade Practices Act (TPA) is too big and too complicated. The Government has introduced phase I of their two-phase plan to implement a new Australian Consumer Law which will bulk up the Act even further (the Bill alone runs to 84 pages). The adds to the additional 90 pages of statutory text generated by the […]
The Trade Practices (Australian Consumer Law) Bill 2009 was introduced into Parliament last month and contains the new unfair terms laws which, if passed, will enter into force on 1 January 2009. They are, however, considerably watered down from the original proposed unfair terms laws and the Government has provided insufficient explanation for this change. […]
The ARC has accepted the ranking of law journals proposed (reluctantly) by the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD) and it’s not good news for competition law academics. Rankings are designed to ensure research is assessed based on ‘quality’ and not merely ‘quantity’, although exactly how this will work in practice remains unclear. Good quality […]
Australia will soon join the US, the UK and a number of other countries in criminalising cartel behaviour. The criminalisation of cartels is desirable. The economic damage they cause is well documented and civil penalties, no matter the size, have failed to provide adequate deterrence. But the consequences of criminalisation are serious and it is […]
On 6 May the government released a second discussion paper relating to the introduction of creeping acquisition laws in Australia. It is disappointing to say the least. A ‘creeping acquistion’ involves ‘the acquisition of a number of individual assets or businesses over time that may collectively raise competition concerns, but when considered in isolation, are […]