Six major car companies indicated Tuesday they were open to a quick settlement of class actions brought on behalf of potentially hundreds of thousands of Australian drivers whose cars were fitted with defective and deadly Takata airbags.
The two criminal cartel cases brought by the ACCC in the past three months are just the beginning, lawyers say, with three or four more criminal matters expected to be brought by the end of the year.
H.J. Heinz Company has been fined $2.25 million for marketing sugary snacks to kids as healthy, a fraction of the $10 million penalty sought by the ACCC.
The Full Federal Court has shot down Reckitt Benckiser’s appeal of a ruling that it misled consumers with claims that its Nurofen is a more effective pain killer than rival GlaxoSmithKline’s Panadol.
Private follow-on actions for consumer law violations will be easier to bring under a new bill recently introduced in the Senate, a potential boon to class action lawyers.
Companies breaching the Australian Consumer Law will be hit with higher fines after the Federal Parliament on Thursday passed a bill that aligns the maximum penalties with fines for competition law violations.
Hotel booking site Trivago has been hit with legal action by the consumer regulator alleging the company’s price advertisements were misleading.
The competition regulator has cleared JCDecaux Australia’s multibillion merger with APN Outdoor Group, while oOh!media’s $570 million tie-up with AdShel has also been given the nod.
The long, complex battle over who owns the rights to the Kraft peanut butter trade dress just promised to get longer, with Kraft winning approval to bring fresh allegations against Bega mid-trial.
The ACCC will announce its decision on TransUrban’s proposed bid for a majority stake in the $16.8 billion WestConnex highway project a week early, in light of the New South Wales Government’s timetable for reviewing bids.