Anyone found guilty of price fixing and collusion could be jailed for up to five years under planned federal laws.
The draft laws, which will amend the Trade Practices Act, will cover petrol, food, clothing and a range of other consumer goods.
The proposed laws were aimed at keeping prices low and restricting anti-competitive behaviour, said Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs, Chris Bowen.
“To have a proper disincentive to do this you need to have, for serious offences, the possibility of a jail term,” Bowen told Channel 9 today. “Under the draft legislation we are looking at a maximum of five years.”
He said that heavy financial penalties would also apply.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SmartCompany is the leading online publication in Australia for free news, information and resources catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.