New legislation gives greater protection to Telstra competitors

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 15 September 2009 09:32

IT Industry - Strategy

Also, The ACCC will have the power to make binding rules of conduct for the supply of declared services enabling it to act quickly on issues affecting the supply of retail services. These would be temporary measure to deal with urgent matters and limited a maximum of 12 months.

The propose legislation would also help the ACCC to deal better with anticompetitive conduct. Its main weapon is the competition notice instructing the perpetrator to cease or amend anti-competitive conduct. The current competition protection regime requires the ACCC to consult with affected parties before issuing a competition notice, creating delays. As the explanatory memorandum notes: "These delays may lead to irreversible damage to the parties that are affected by any alleged anti-competitive conduct."

Under the proposed changes the ACCC will no longer be required to consult before issuing the notice. The Explanatory memorandum notes that this will deny the party alleged to have taken part in anti-competitive conduct the ability to delay the ACCC's enforcement activities on procedural grounds. "The focus for both parties will therefore be on resolving the alleged illegal conduct, rather than on litigation aimed at challenging the processes followed by the ACCC." However if the anticompetitive conduct continues despite the notice the ACCC would still have no alternative to but to take the offender to court, during which time the conduct could continue.

The proposed legislation has also clarified that the competition notice regime applies to content services delivered by carriers and carriage service providers.