Last year the ACCC published its 5th interim report in the Digital Platform Services Inquiry, containing a range of regulatory reform recommendations. We set out a summary of the recommendations in our November newsletter here.
As flagged in that summary, the Department of the Treasury has now (on 20 December) released a consultation paper seeking views from stakeholders on these recommendations which you can access here. This process will inform the government’s response to the ACCC’s report and whether/how the recommendations should be implemented.
In brief, the consultation paper notes that the ACCC has recommended the adoption of a new regulatory framework for consumer protection and to improve competition, that governments in several overseas jurisdictions have expanded their competition regulatory frameworks to include “ex-ante obligations” (i.e. rules that regulate markets before issues occur, rather than enabling legal action after they have occurred), and that the current consultation is aimed at considering the most effective policy framework for the Australian context.
It notes that a threshold question for the consultation is the extent to which some or all of the benefits of the proposed new measures could be achieved through existing general consumer and competition regulatory protections, and that all policy alternatives need to be assessed, including voluntary or self-regulatory approaches.
The consultation paper poses a range of specific questions in relation to the ACCC’s recommendations on economy-wide measures, consumer measures and competition measures, and seeks views on any alternatives stakeholder would like to propose.
Submissions close 15 February.