Unfair trading practices – Consultation Regulation Impact Statement
The Law Council of Australia provided a submission to Treasury in response to its Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (Consultation RIS) titled Protecting consumers from unfair trading practices.
The Consultation RIS identifies examples of potentially unfair trading practices that cause harm to consumers and small businesses which, it is suggested, may not be captured by the current prohibitions in the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).1
The Consultation RIS details several proposals intended to address such practices, namely:
- Option 1: status quo (no change);
- Option 2: amend the statutory prohibition on unconscionable conduct in section 21 of the ACL, extending it to capture a broader range of conduct;
- Option 3: introduce into the ACL a general prohibition on unfair trading practices; or
- Option 4: introduce both a general prohibition on unfair trading practices (as in Option 3) with the addition of a list of specific prohibited practices.
These proposals have been crafted in response to ongoing commercial practices causing significant consumer harm, particularly (although not only) in the digital environment, which often fails to be captured by existing prohibitions in the ACL.
Read the full submission below.
1 Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) sch 2 (‘Australian Consumer Law’).
Last Updated on 04/09/2024
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