Clifford Chance

Parliament passes sweeping changes to Australia's misuse of market power laws

28 August 2017

Substantive changes to the misuse of market power prohibition of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (CCA) were passed by both houses of Australia's parliament on 15 August 2017. Once implemented, these reforms will introduce an 'effects' style test into the section 46 prohibition in a shift towards a much broader legal test.

Importantly, since the introduction of the draft statutory language, a number of further amendments have been made to the new section 46 that remove safeguards that were initially proposed to protect pro-competitive conduct from being caught by the wider ranging 'effects' test.

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