Cost of living pressures, digital transformation and merger reforms: a busy year ahead for ACCC

ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb yesterday announced the ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities for 2025-26. The key focus was on sectors and conduct which have significant impact on cost of living and the cost of doing business, with the link between informed consumers and robust competition clearer than ever.

The key competition law enforcement priorities include:

• Supermarket and retail sector: market concentration in the supermarket industry remains a key challenge for the ACCC following its 2024 inquiry examining the pricing, competition and emerging issues in Australia's supermarket sector. The ACCC Chair expressed concerns over the apparent imbalance of bargaining power between supermarkets and suppliers and small businesses, and indicated that the regulator will look to pursue anti-competitive conduct in this space.
• Telecommunications, electricity, and gas: The ACCC remains committed to promoting effective competition in essential services, warning that the current rising cost-of-living and cost of doing business means that consumers and small businesses are particularly vulnerable to anti-competitive conduct in essential services.
• Aviation sector: The ACCC Chair shone the spotlight on the aviation sector as an example of the importance of competition to consumers, business and the economy. The ACCC renewed its commitment to addressing competition and consumer issues in aviation, noting the challenges posed by the recent exit of Rex and Bonza airlines, which leaves Qantas and Virgin controlling more than 90% of the market.
• Digital Economy: Digital products and services, including search engines, app stores, social media services and online marketplaces. have become increasingly necessary for the operation of businesses in Australia. The ACCC has signalled that it will continue to scrutinise digital platforms and pursue investigations of potential anti-competitive conduct in this space.

This focus on the cost of living and the cost of doing business also translated to the following key consumer law enforcement priorities:

• Supermarket and retail sector: The ACCC aims to target consumer and fair trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sectors, with a focus on misleading pricing practices.
• Telecommunications, electricity, and gas: With households and businesses ever reliant on essential services like telecommunications, electricity and gas, the ACCC aims to crackdown on misleading pricing and claims to ensure that customers are getting clear and accurate information to be able to make informed decisions.
• Misleading surcharging practices and add-on costs: Businesses should anticipate increased scrutiny from the ACCC regarding merchant surcharging that exceeds the cost of card acceptances. The ACCC wants to increase compliance with the excessive card payment surcharging prohibition, and improve pricing practices to ensure all add on costs are appropriately disclosed.
• Digital economy: The ACCC will also continue to focus on misleading or deceptive advertising within influencer marketing, online reviews, in-app purchases and unsafe consumer products. The ACCC wants to promote choice, compliant sales practices and remove unfair contract terms, such as subscription traps in online sales.

Merger reforms

Ms Cass-Gottlieb also emphasised the importance of successfully implementing the new merger control regime, which comes into effect from 1 January 2026, and is confident that the ACCC is well equipped to facilitate quicker decisions for merger parties under the new regime.

The new merger control regime imposes statutory obligations on mergers and acquisitions, and Ms Cass-Gottlieb made clear that the ACCC will not hesitate to take enforcement action against mergers that fail to be notified. In particular, the ACCC will be vigilant in monitoring businesses that try to "test the boundaries to avoid notification of transactions or genuine compliance with the regime" when the new regime comes into effect. Ms Cass-Gottlieb also noted that the ACCC considers that the new regime will give the ACCC a broad and general discretion to determine whether to waiver the obligation to notify a transaction.

The ACCC will be releasing guidelines on the transition arrangements in the coming weeks, and will commence public consultations on draft process guidelines and draft analytical guidelines by the end of March 2025.

Other ACCC priorities

The ACCC's priorities for the 2025-26 financial year are wide-ranging, and also include:

1. Consumer, fair trading and competition concerns in relation to environmental claims and sustainability, with a focus on greenwashing.
2. Unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts, with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including those associated with automatic renewals, early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses.
3. Improving industry compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on consumer electronics.
4. Consumer issues that exist within the aviation sector.
5. Improving compliance by NDIS providers with their obligations under Australian Consumer Law.
6. Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery standards and raising awareness about new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards.
7. Enduring priorities, being cartel conduct, anti-competitive conduct, product safety, consumers experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage, conduct impacting First Nations Australians, small business and scams.

Further comments from Commissioner Cass-Gottlieb: AI, energy, aviation

In a wide-ranging Q&A session, Ms Cass-Gottlieb commented on a number of topics including:

• Global cooperation between the ACCC and other international agencies, which will continue. The ACCC considers that this collaboration is essential to ensuring effective engagement and enforcement of global conduct, such as combatting scams. The ACCC considers engagement is important to share views on the challenges being faced and on best practice.
• How the ACCC is using AI to support its enforcement priorities. The ACCC is trialling the use of AI in various applications. It is also working with other global agencies, particularly those who have made significant forays into adopting AI to understand the lessons learned.
• The role of competition in an energy sector that is transitioning towards net zero. It was noted that it is important to prioritise the continuation of workable, viable competition, even during periods of disruption and change.
• Competition in the aviation sector. The importance of the monitoring role of the ACCC was emphasised, which allows the ACCC to closely review the charging and performance of airlines and airports and services that are critical to the operation of competition in the sector. The changes to the slot management rules at Sydney Airport were also highlighted.