Stuart Corner
Thursday, 05 April 2007 20:09
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 2
The ACCC has suffered a major setback and Telstra has scored a major victory: The federal court has ruled that the ACCC was in error when it issued a competition notice on Telstra in April 2006. Not surprisingly, the two sides paint radically different pictures of the outcome of the case.
In its announcement of the judgement, Telstra used the opportunity, and most of the announcement, to have another go at the ACCC. It renewed its call for the ACCC's powers to be overhauled and claimed that "The ACCC tried to argue in this case that it is not subject to the normal laws governing all government agencies and believes it is above the law."
Telstra opened its press release by saying that "the Federal Court ruled the ACCC acted illegally in issuing a competition notice to Telstra almost a year ago." But if you read right through to the end of the backgrounder, past the attacks on the ACCC and the chronology of developments you get the real story.
Two key events in this chronology were: "On December 22 [2005] Telstra was issued with a consultation notice and given until January 27 to provide a written submission in response," and: "On 13 April 2006 Telstra was issued with a competition notice which raised different concerns to the consultation notice, including introducing the new concept of an anti-competitive price squeeze in the low-spend consumer market."
These differences are the key to the ruling in favour of Telstra, as Telstra explains at the very end of its press release. "Justice Bennett rules the notices were invalid (not in compliance with Pt XIB [of the Trade Practices Act] and procedural fairness) because they were materially different and so Telstra was not afforded a proper opportunity to make submissions to the ACCC about the matters dealt with in the competition notice."
