Contracts Archives - Consumers' Federation of Australia

11 December , 2023

T’s & C’s In and Out of Australia

Yesterday, the High Court unanimously ruled in favour of the passengers. In so doing, it put companies doing business in Australia on notice that Australia’s consumer protection laws apply both inside and outside the country’s borders.

It decided the class action waiver was unfair to the passengers. This was because Australian consumer law prohibits unfair consumer contracts and because the express terms of that law apply to companies doing business in Australia, regardless of whether they are headquartered in Australia or overseas.

As the High Court explained, a price of a company doing business in Australia is that it must adhere to Australia’s consumer protection laws.

18 September , 2023

ACCC Urges Businesses to Remove Unfair Contract Term

“The test for whether a contract term is unfair has not changed. However, businesses now could potentially face substantial penalties for contravening the law. This will better protect consumers and small businesses who have limited bargaining power, expertise, and ability to negotiate or assess standard form contracts,”

25 January , 2019

Labor makes unfair contract terms illegal

The following is a media release from Chris Bowen MP, Madeleine King MP and Andrew Leigh MP. A Shorten Government will protect small business by making unfair contract terms illegal and punishable with significant fines of up to $10 million. Australia’s current laws aren’t tough enough. While contracts terms that unfairly exploit a power imbalance…

7 August , 2018

Queensland consumers want changes to proposals for National Energy Consumer Framework

The Queensland Consumers Association (QCA) wants the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) to change its proposed new rule in the National Energy Customer Framework (NECF) that will require energy retailers to provide customers with prior notification of price changes for many types of contracts. Although the QCA’s submission to the AEMC supports most of the…

16 March , 2017

Nine Hours of Conditions Apply *

CHOICE says global companies need to stop pushing consumers into signing off on long, unreadable online contracts Consumers’ Federation of Australia member CHOICE is calling on the Federal Government to stop companies from forcing consumers to accept tens-of-thousands of words of complex requirements, just to use a product, after a review of e-reader terms and…

3 February , 2016