On May 3, the ARA hosted its luncheon, “Retail, Consumers and Competition” featuring keynote speaker, Graeme Samuel, Chair of the ACCC at the Star Room on Darling Harbour in Sydney. The luncheon, sponsored by SEEK, was the first of the “Retail Exchange” series in New South Wales.
Mr Samuel spoke about the ACCC and its relationship with the retail sector.
Mr Samuel largely focused on the ACCC’s role in ensuring fair competition so that businesses can operate in an equitable environment and consumers benefit from the situation.
He started by highlighting the vast increase of mergers recently and the potential impacts they could have on fair trading. He said that the ACCC examines mergers to see if there is an anti-competitive impact on other businesses and said the ACCC takes out any aspect that threatens healthy competition in Australian industry.
Mr Samuel spoke about the Trade Practices Act and gave particular attention to Section 46, which ensures larger businesses do not abuse their market power against small businesses, and mentioned Section 51AA, 51AB, and 51AC which protect businesses and consumers from unconscionable conduct.
He said Trade Practices Act regulation encompasses threes components – a compliance culture, communication, and common sense. The regulation needs to ensure that businesses comply, so heavy penalties are set for those that don’t and in some cases may result in criminal convictions. To comply, he emphasised that solid communication needs to occur within businesses and also between businesses and the ACCC. He said that the ACCC has a culture where they want to work with businesses, so if there is a problem with compliance it is better to contact the ACCC immediately to come up with a solution. According to
Mr Samuel, businesses who discover a problem and decide to “sweep it under the carpet” inevitably suffer the penalties, whereas businesses that are upfront with a compliance issue are treated more sympathetically as a result of voluntary disclosure.
After talking about the Trade Practices Act, Mr Samuel went on to discuss a number of other issues such as cartels, which he described as “a cancer on the Australian economy”, and the ACCC’s steps to ban executives involved in unscrupulous practices.
He briefly touched on the subject of tenancy and said that it was not the ACCC’s role to curtail rental rates on retailers. He said the market will determine what a property is worth and stressed the importance of negotiating hard and seeking advice before entering into an agreement.
Mr Samuel concluded his address by outlining the ACCC’s key principles of confidentiality, timeliness, transparency and serving the Australian consumers and businesses.
ARA’s then Executive Director, Duncan Shaw facilitated a Q&A session between the audience and Mr Samuel opening up the floor for a lively discussion covering issues such as tenancy, collective bargaining with shopping centres and competition in the service station industry.
