Question

Why did the Australian Parliament enact the Australian Consumer Law (ACL)? What is the purpose of the ACL and how does it relate to the sale of goods legislation in the Australian States? Briefly describe the structure of the ACL and briefly discuss any important cases that have been decided by reference to the ACL.

Answer 1

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) was enacted to provide a uniform set of laws for consumer protection. It relates to the Sale of Goods legislation because they both regulate the sale of goods and when they are applied to said transactions, they give the consumers certain rights and the business, certain obligations like quality and product safety. ACL characterises a consumer as someone who buys a good for any use and when there is a monetary exchange, it implies a certain set of guidelines. It includes lots of laws like National unfair contract terms law, National law guaranteeing consumer rights, National product safety law etc along with guarantee and consumer redress options.

An important case that was decided by the ACL is the one where BVivid (a telco provider) made unsolicited sales calls to consumers to offer them NBN service plans from BVivid and also said that they would lose connectivity or lose their numbers if they didn't switch. According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, this likely breached the ACL and BVivid ended up paying $25,000 when it was given two infringement notices from ACCC.