ACCC's Focus on Major Supermarket Investigation

In a recent keynote address to the VFF Annual Conference in Melbourne, Enforcement and Compliance, Executive General Manager, Marcus Bezzi discussed the ACCC's investigation into major supermarkets as a major continuing involvement for the organisation into the future.

Bezzi discussed many important issues facing the ACCC in their compliance and enforcement role including:

• maximising contribution through identifying the most important problems for consumers

• thorough assessment of information received from State and Territory sources regularly

• integrity and transparency when undergoing all investigations

Bezzi also stated that ACCC policy now emphasises that some forms of conduct are so detrimental to consumer welfare and the competitive process that the ACCC will always assess them as a priority, irrespective of the sector of the economy in which the activity occurs. These are:

• cartel conduct, that is, price fixing, market sharing, bid rigging and agreements on output between competitors,

• anti-competitive agreements, and

• misuse of market power.

As a specific area of focus, the ACCC has maintained reference to placing priority on competition and consumer issues arising in highly concentrated sectors, and in particular the supermarkets and fuel sectors.

The ACCC's current consumer protection priorities are a mix of those from 2012 that require further work and new and emerging concerns. They are:

• online consumer issues

• telecommunications and energy

• consumer guarantees

• consumer protection issues impacting on Indigenous communities

• credence claims, particularly in the food industry

• unfair contract terms, and of course

• the ACCC carbon price claims role continues

In its new role under the Consumer Protection laws in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), the ACCC has a vital role to play in protecting consumers and enforcing compliance.

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