Miller's Australian Competition & Consumer Law Annotated 45th 2023

Australia Title

Miller’s Australian Competition and Consumer Law Annotated has established itself as the essential resource on the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, described by former ACCC Chair, Rod Sims AO, as the indispensable guide to competition and consumer law.

The 45^th edition provides practitioners, in-house counsel, academics and students with the latest guide to competition and consumer law with judicial interpretation and practical information, up to date to 1 January 2023.

The 45^th edition of Miller includes 70 new annotations and over 300 updates, including 75 new court and Tribunal decisions, 54 new ACCC Authorisations and two legislative changes.  Highlights include:

• New cartel decisions – Alkaloids, Bingo Industries, Bluescope Steel, Joyce, Vina Money, NQCranes; and withdrawal of the prosecutions in Citigroup and CFMEU.

• High Court decisions – Pattinson (applicability of criminal sentencing principles to civil penalty proceedings); H. Lundbeck A/S v Sandoz Pty Ltd (failure to warn as misleading conduct); Stubbings v Jams 2 Pty Ltd (no particular decisive factor in determining special disadvantage in unconscionable conduct cases).

• Legislation – Treasury Laws Amendment (More Competition, Better Prices) Act 2022 - significant increases in maximum penalties and significant strengthening of protections for consumers and small businesses against unfair contract terms by legislating penalties for making or giving effect to unfair contract terms; Competition and Consumer Amendment (Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Information Sharing Scheme) Act 2021, which came into effect on 1 July 2022.

• Latest unfair contract terms decisions - Fujifilm – orders to remove unfair contract terms from 21 template contract forms used to enter around 34,000 standard form contracts. The Ruby Princess – application of the unfair contract terms provisions to contracts entered outside Australia by foreigners.

• More significant penalties for consumer breaches in Google ($60 million), Trivago ($44.7 million), reinforcing that, although penalties are not punitive, they should not be seen as a cost of doing business.

• Merger clearances – the 5 ACCC public competition assessments published in 2022. 

• The latest exclusive dealing decision – Australasian Food Group – resulting in a $12 million penalty for contravention for requiring a distributor of single-serve ice cream products not to distribute a competitor’s products without consent.

• Clarification of application of the misleading conduct prohibition to announcements of earnings guidance by ASX listed companies – Crowley v Worley.

• The latest construction industry secondary boycott decision – Hutchinson – resulting in penalties against both the construction company and the CFMEU for boycotting a subcontractor at a Brisbane building site.

• Proportionate liability – the latest NSW Court of Appeal decision DSHE Holdings Ltd v Potts.