In a wide-ranging address today to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in Sydney, the ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb outlined the competition and consumer regulator’s enforcement and compliance priorities for the next 12 months. A copy of the speech and priorities can be found on the ACCC website. The ACCC Chair has also outlined the ACCC’s priorities in a short video on LinkedIn.
A number of key themes emerged from the ACCC Chair’s speech, but resonating throughout was the fundamental connection that exists between consumer protection and competition policy. ‘Consumer protection supports trust and participation in markets; competition supports outcomes that consumer can have confidence in. Together, they are vital to the proper functioning of markets and to the strength of the economy as a whole’, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.
Acknowledging that regulators, businesses and consumers continue to experience heightened volatility, uncertainty and polarisation, the Chair extolled the virtues of effective, right-sized regulation that, together with a shared understanding of the standards of expected behaviour, engenders trust and accountability between businesses, customers and consumers. Businesses should have systems and incentives that promote compliance and accountability.
We summarise the key takeaways and ACCC priorities below.
Key takeaways – what does this mean for your business?
Businesses should be aware of the following areas that will form part of the ACCC’s enforcement priorities going forward:
- Stronger, targeted enforcement and executive accountability: Businesses can expect the ACCC to take continued action on competition and consumer harm with significant penalties, remediation requirements and particular scrutiny of leadership culture and governance.
- Competition risk enforcement: The ACCC will continue to focus on conduct that undermines competition in retail supply chains, resale price maintenance, digital platforms and, of course, the new merger regime featuring mandatory notification.
- Consumer protection priorities: Businesses can expect ongoing scrutiny on pricing practices, unfair contract terms, cancellation practices and heightened scrutiny in essential services and aviation.
- Digital and data compliance: The ACCC will target dark patterns, subscription traps, and CDR non-compliance while also enforcing the Scams Prevention Framework obligations to prevent, detect, disrupt and report scams. Businesses should ensure proper design and safety features and compliance with any obligations under the CDR and the Scams Prevention Framework.
- Sustainability and product safety: Greenwashing enforcement is likely to continue alongside action on button batteries, infant sleep and furniture mandatory standards. Businesses should ensure they can substantiate all environmental claims with evidence and run supply-chain-wide safety checks, as well as conducting pre-market testing and ensuring accuracy in labelling.
The priorities for 2026
The ACCC has identified a number of key sectors of the economy on which it will focus closely in 2026-27. These sectors are:
- Retail sector and supply chains including a focus on conduct by firms with market power, restrictions that limit price competition, and misleading pricing practices that undermine consumer trust.
- Essential services including telecommunications, electricity and gas with a focus on continuing to address misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services, especially for energy and telecommunications, where accurate and meaningful information supports consumer choice and competition.
- Aviation sector including through market monitoring, advocacy to promote better outcomes for consumers and competition and enforcement action where appropriate.
- Digital and data-enabled markets through the digital platform competition reforms and implementation and enforcement of the new Scams Prevention Framework, which was introduced last year.
Alongside these compliance and enforcement priorities, the ACCC will also focus on:
- support the introduction of a principles-based general prohibition on unfair trading practices in the Australian Consumer Law (ACL); and
- continue to administer Australia’s new mandatory merger regime.
Retail and supply chain
The ACCC has again identified the retail sector and supply chain conduct as a key priority for the ACCC, which reflects the importance of the sector to Australian households and the economy more broadly.
The ACCC has already commenced proceedings to address conduct that it considers undermines competition in this sector, including initiating civil cartel proceedings against fresh food suppliers for alleged price fixing, and actions against suppliers in retail supply chains for alleged resale price maintenance.
The Chair stated that the ACCC will continue to focus on consumer trust in retail pricing. This includes focusing on misleading sale or discount claims which disadvantage competing businesses and result in consumers being unable to make informed choices.
Essential services – telecommunications, electricity and gas
The ACCC has also identified essential services as a priority focus for 2026-27.
Noting the ACCC’s recent work in monitoring and reporting on retail electricity, the Chair has emphasised the ACCC’s priority focus on promoting competition and addressing misleading pricing in essential services sectors (particularly the telecommunications, electricity and gas sectors).
This is because telecommunications, electricity and gas are sectors which provide essential services for households and businesses. Due to their essential nature, it is important that these sectors employ accountable systems and processes which promote transparency and good consumer outcomes.
Aviation
The Chair highlighted the aviation sector as another key area of focus for the ACCC in 2026-27.
The aviation sector offers vital services to support Australia’s economy and social connectivity, and is characterised by “high concentration, significant barriers to entry and limited consumer choice”.
The ACCC will continue to prioritise competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector, including through market monitoring, advocacy and enforcement action.
Digital and data-enabled markets
The ACCC will also continue to focus on digital and data-enabled markets.
Market dynamics and consumer outcomes in these markets are continuously reshaped by scale, data and design. As a result, conduct in digital markets can have ‘rapid and wide-ranging effect’ on competition and consumer outcomes.
A key enforcement priority for the ACCC in 2026-27 is a renewed focus on manipulative and false practices and unsafe consumer goods in digital markets. This recognises the emergence of practices such as subscription traps and other dark patterns – practices which the ACCC is concerned unfairly impact consumer choice.
The ACCC is also determined to achieve digital platform competition reform. The ACCC will continue to take a proactive approach to the introduction of ex ante regulation of digital platforms, emphasising the importance of ‘right-sized regulation’ based on service-specific codes of conduct targeted towards firms with market power.
The ACCC will also enforce the Consumer Data Right and implement the Scams Prevention Framework, as introduced in 2025, to respond to the growing prevalence of sophisticated scams that exploit consumers across a range of sectors in an increasingly digital economy.
Consumer safety, trust and confidence
As part of the ACCC’s focus on consumer safety, trust and transparency the Chair emphasised ongoing enforcement under the following areas:
- environment and sustainability, with a focus on greenwashing;
- unfair contract terms (particularly harmful cancellation practices such as automatic renewals, early termination fees and non-cancellation clauses) and improving compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on motor vehicles; and
- product safety with a focus on protecting young children, through a focus on compliance with button battery, infant sleep and toppling furniture mandatory standards.
Unfair trading practices
The ACCC will continue to support the introduction of a principles-based general prohibition on unfair trading practices in the ACL to serve as a safety net, addressing conduct that causes real harm to consumers and small businesses. This statement of support comes off the back of the Government last week releasing exposure draft legislation to introduce a general prohibition against unfair trading practices alongside specific obligations to address subscription traps and drip pricing. For more information on this, see our Insight here. The ACCC supports extension of the unfair trading practices prohibition to financial services and business-to-business transactions.
Don’t forget merger reform!
Just 50 days into the new mandatory merger clearance regime, the Chair made some observations regarding the new regime. The Chair highlighted that the ACCC had received 31 merger notifications since 1 July 2025. Of these, 15 had been approved and 16 are currently under assessment, including two which have moved to Phase 2 for in-depth review.
The ACCC has also seen a steady flow of applications for notification waiver, having approved 23 and denied 3 of these waiver applications since 1 January 2026. The Chair further noted that the ACCC has so far met its target of determining 80% of waiver and notification applications within 20 business days.
Enduring priorities
Beyond the specific priorities for 2026-27, the Chair also emphasised that the allocation of enforcement resources will continue to be 'guided by evidence and informed by risk,’ and in particular:
- Conduct that is harmful to the competitive process including cartel and other collusive behaviour, exclusionary conduct, anti-competitive agreements and the misuse of market power;
- Conduct that places consumers at serious risk including unsafe products, scams and practices that disproportionately harm people experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage, or First Nations Australians, particularly where barriers exist to asserting basic consumer rights; and
- Conduct that undermines fair dealing for small businesses including in the agriculture sector where power imbalances can be acute and the consequences long-lasting.
Trust and accountability
The Chair emphasised trust – ‘Trust is not built by consumers having to complain to secure their basic rights. It is not built by businesses doing the right thing only when compelled to do so. It is built when there is a shared understanding — across both the business and consumer communities — of the standards of behaviour expected in markets, and when there is real accountability for meeting those standards.'
The ACCC will be looking at accountability of senior executives. Businesses should ensure that incentive structures incent compliant behaviour.
The importance of ‘doing the right thing’, at all times, is paramount.
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