Competition and Consumer Law Noticeboard March 2021: Miller’s 43rd edition now available
Content updates
Miller's 43rd edition offers practitioners, in-house counsel, academics and students the latest guide to competition and consumer law with judicial interpretation and practical information, current to 1 January 2021. This edition includes over 300 updates to annotations and 92 new annotation paragraphs, incorporating over 100 new court decisions and 50 new ACCC cases.
The highlights of this edition are:
- Consumer rights – increased monetary threshold for the application of the Australian Consumer Law from $40,000 to $100,000 with effect from 1 July 2021.
- Consumer protection: electricity industry – annotations of the new prohibited conduct regime which came into effect on 10 June 2020.
- Cartels – Country Care Group Pty Ltd v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) [2020] FCAFC 30 clarifying the law on aiding and abetting attempted cartel conduct.
- Penalties – ACCC v Geowash Pty Ltd (No 4) [2020] FCA 23 explaining the “same conduct” penalty rule when two penalty regimes are involved, and ACCC v Medibank Private Ltd [2020] FCA 1030 on the “course of conduct” principle.
- Damages – the latest High Court decision, Berry v CCL Secure Pty Ltd [2020] HCA 27, explaining the approach to assessing damages for value of the lost opportunity.
- Mergers – ACCC v Pacific National Pty Ltd [2020] FCAFC 77, the latest Full Court decision on mergers.
- Consumer protection – ACCC v TPG Internet Pty Ltd [2020] FCAFC 130, in which a Full Court reassessing the "significant" or "substantial" proportion of persons requirement to establish the relevant class of the public is likely to be misled.
- Franchising Code – extended, with effect from 1 June 2020, to include provisions a specific to new vehicles dealerships.
- Food and Grocery Code - updated with effect from 3 October 2020, on Graeme Samuel AC’s recommendations as the Independent Review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.
- Consumer Data Right Rules – incorporated these rules into the book for ready reference.
- Media Bargaining Code – included discussion on the controversial proposal for a mandatory news media bargaining code. See also the latest Media & Privacy Law and Intellectual Property & Technology Law Noticeboard posts regarding the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code as passed by Parliament.