Mobil undertakes to not subscribe to petrol price information sharing services

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accepted a court enforceable undertaking from Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd (Mobil), in which Mobil agrees that it will not subscribe to the retail petrol price information exchange service supplied by Informed Sources (Australia) Pty Ltd (the Informed Sources service) for the next five years.

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Mobil has also undertaken not to subscribe to any similar electronic retail petrol price information exchange services where subscribers:

  • can determine that other subscribers will have access to the price information they provide to the service
  • have access to the price information of other subscribers under the condition that they provide their own price information.

Last week, the ACCC instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against Informed Sources (Australia) Pty Ltd and several petrol retailer subscribers to the Informed Sources service in Melbourne, alleging that they contravened s 45(2) of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. ACCC takes action against Informed Sources and petrol retailers for price information sharing.

Mobil was a subscriber to the Informed Sources service until October 2010 when it sold its interest in fuel retailing assets in Australia.

The ACCC has accepted the undertaking from Mobil and has not joined it to the Federal Court proceedings after taking into account that Mobil ceased subscribing to the Informed Sources service some time ago and has undertaken not to subscribe to similar services for five years.

A copy of the undertaking is available on the ACCC’s public register.

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Photo credit: Uze