Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency v Chegg, Inc. [2026] FCA 330

This case concerned the Australian ban on academic cheating services and how that ban applies to an online platform business. The applicant was the Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, and the respondent was Chegg, Inc., a US-listed company. The Court opened by noting Parliament's concern that academic cheating services threaten the integrity and reputation of higher education, with broader public confidence, safety and economic consequences.

Chegg offered Australian students a paid monthly subscription called Chegg Study Help. One feature of that subscription, Expert Q&A, let subscribers upload questions through the Chegg website. Subject experts engaged by Chegg India, a wholly owned subsidiary, prepared answers and uploaded them back to the website. Those answers could then be accessed, viewed or downloaded by the subscriber who asked the question and by other subscribers.

The case was not about punishing students directly. The Court noted that Parliament targeted providers of academic cheating services, while students remain subject to their institutions' academic disciplinary processes. The commercial focus was therefore on the platform, the service design and the way answers were produced and delivered.

The procedural posture matters. TEQSA filed the proceeding in October 2024 and later filed amended originating process and an amended concise statement in September 2025. Before the hearing, the parties agreed a resolution. They filed a statement of agreed facts and admissions dated 20 February 2026, joint submissions on relief and proposed consent orders.

That means this was not a contested trial where witnesses were cross-examined and the Court had to choose between competing factual versions. Instead, Chegg admitted three contraventions of s 114A(3) of the TEQSA Act, and the Court considered whether it was sufficiently persuaded of the agreed facts and whether the proposed penalty was an appropriate remedy. The reasons expressly refer to the High Court's approach to agreed penalties in civil proceedings, recognising that agreed facts and agreed consequences can be accepted where the Court is satisfied they are accurate and appropriate.

For business readers, that is important because the judgment is not a speculative warning. It records admitted contraventions and final orders made by the Federal Court. It also means the factual narrative is especially useful for compliance review, because it shows the exact service flow that led to liability.

The reasons describe how Expert Q&A operated. Experts engaged by Chegg India accessed questions submitted in Australia, prepared answers and uploaded those answers to the Chegg website. Chegg provided directions, instructions and training to those experts and monitored their work. Experts were trained to look for signs that uploaded questions included assessment tasks, such as words like exam, test or quiz, and were directed not to participate in aiding academic dishonesty or answer inappropriate content such as exam questions.

Chegg also had user-facing controls. Subscribers had to accept terms of use stating that they must not use, claim or submit as their own any portion of the help materials, and they were required to abide by Chegg's Honour Code. The Honour Code prohibited academic cheating. Subscribers were reminded of it each time they submitted a question and were issued a warning in the event of inappropriate use. The reasons also record that Chegg maintained ownership of, and intellectual property rights over, the content of answers uploaded to the website.

Despite those controls, the admitted contraventions still occurred. That is one of the most commercially significant parts of the case. The Court was dealing with a service that had compliance language and training, but where the actual workflow still resulted in answers being prepared and uploaded for assessment tasks and an exam.

The first contravention involved Student A, who was enrolled in CIV2263 - Water Systems at Monash. Student A was instructed to undertake an assessment task called Assignment - Water Surface Profiles. The agreed facts stated that this assessment task, or a substantial part of it, was work Student A was required to undertake personally. On or around 1 May 2022, Student A uploaded a copy of the assessment to Expert Q&A. An expert engaged by Chegg India then prepared a handwritten answer and uploaded it to the Chegg website. The agreed facts stated that the answer reflected a substantial part, or all, of the work Student A was required to undertake personally. Student A later accessed the answer and submitted work to Monash reflecting it, including identical errors. During Monash's investigation, Student A admitted: "I relied on Chegg to complete this assignment".

The second contravention involved Student B, who was enrolled in FIT1045 - Algorithms and Programming Fundamentals in Python. Part 2 of the programming assignment included Task A and Task B. The agreed facts stated that this programming assessment task was an assessment task, or a substantial part of one, that Student B was required to undertake personally. On 11 and 12 January 2022, a subscriber uploaded a copy of the programming assessment task to Expert Q&A. The reasons specifically note there was nothing in the agreed facts to suggest that subscriber was Student B, and the judge proceeded on the basis it was someone else. Two experts then prepared typed answers to Task A and Task B and uploaded them to the website. The agreed facts stated that the programming answer reflected a substantial part, or all, of the work Student B was required to undertake personally. Student B later accessed the answer and submitted work reflecting it.

The third contravention involved Student E, who was enrolled in FIT2094 - Databases. On 1 November 2021, Student E was instructed to undertake an examination to be completed that day. The agreed facts stated that the exam, or a substantial part of it, was work Student E was required to undertake personally. Student E uploaded screenshots of questions from the exam to Expert Q&A. An expert engaged by Chegg India prepared handwritten and typed answers and uploaded them to the website. The agreed facts stated that the answer reflected a substantial part, or all, of the work Student E was required to undertake personally. Student E accessed the answer and submitted work wholly or substantially comprised of it. During Monash's investigation, Student E admitted cheating, including by uploading the exam to Chegg and "by taking advantage of online tutors through Chegg".

The central issue was whether the admitted conduct amounted to contraventions of s 114A(3) of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011 (Cth). That provision applies where a person provides, offers to provide, or arranges for a third person to provide an academic cheating service to a student undertaking an Australian course of study, or certain overseas courses in Australia, with a higher education provider.

The reasons set out the statutory definition of an academic cheating service. In broad terms, it concerns the provision of work to students or the undertaking of work for students where that work is, or forms a substantial part of, an assessment task students are required to personally undertake, or could reasonably be regarded that way.

The available reasons also show that the Court had to deal with a novel construction question about the meaning of the word "work" in that definition. The judge said statutory construction begins and ends with the text, read in context and in light of statutory purpose. In the part of the reasons that is available, the judge preferred the view that "work" means the intellectual labour performed by the relevant person, rather than simply the end product in the abstract. The reasons available publicly cut off part-way through that analysis, so the complete reasoning on that point is not fully visible here.

The Court accepted the agreed resolution. It was satisfied as to the agreed facts and consequences and satisfied that the proposed penalty was an appropriate remedy in all the circumstances. The Court also granted the proposed declaratory relief.

The declarations stated that between approximately 1 November 2021 and 31 May 2022, Chegg contravened s 114A(3) by providing or arranging for a third person to provide an academic cheating service to students undertaking an Australian course of study with Monash University on three occasions: the Water Surface Profiles assessment, the Programming Assignment tasks and the Databases electronic examination.

The Court then ordered Chegg to pay a pecuniary penalty of $500,000 to the Commonwealth within 30 days. It also ordered Chegg to pay TEQSA's costs fixed at $150,000 within 30 days. Those figures come directly from the Court's orders. The catchwords also record that the proposed penalty was within the range of appropriate penalties and that declarations and ancillary orders were made in the form sought by the parties.

One of the strongest practical features of this case is the contrast between documented controls and actual conduct. The reasons record several compliance measures: expert training, expert guidelines, directions not to aid academic dishonesty, directions not to answer exam questions, terms of use, an honour code, reminders at question submission and warnings for inappropriate use.

Even so, the admitted contraventions involved answers being prepared and uploaded for assessment tasks and an exam. That means a business cannot assume that policy wording, user promises or contractor instructions will carry decisive weight if the product design still allows prohibited outputs to be created and delivered. Courts and regulators can look at the whole service chain, including what users can upload, what workers or contractors do with that material, what gets published, who can access it and whether the output effectively completes work the user is supposed to do personally.

The reasons also note that Chegg retained ownership of, and intellectual property rights over, the uploaded answers. For platform businesses, that is a reminder that control over content and workflow can be relevant to how the service is characterised. The more integrated the platform's role in receiving, producing and publishing the answer, the harder it may be to frame the business as a passive intermediary.

This case is directly relevant to businesses that run online platforms, marketplaces or subscription services where users submit material and receive tailored outputs. The immediate legal setting is higher education and the TEQSA Act, but the broader operational lesson is about substance over form. If your service helps a user complete a task that the law, a regulator, a university or another framework expects that user to perform personally, you should assess whether the service is crossing into prohibited assistance.

It is also a reminder that Australian exposure can arise even where the company is headquartered overseas and uses a subsidiary or offshore workforce. Chegg was incorporated in the United States, and the experts were engaged by Chegg India, but the Court still dealt with the conduct because the service was provided to students undertaking Australian courses with Monash University.

For founders and operators, the safest reading is operational. Ask whether your system can receive a user's task, route it to a human or automated responder, and return a completed or near-completed answer. If yes, do not assume that a disclaimer or acceptable-use clause solves the problem. Review moderation triggers, escalation rules, blocking controls, publication settings, contractor supervision and audit trails. If the service can still produce the prohibited result, the legal risk may remain.

The relevant conduct occurred between 1 November 2021 and 31 May 2022. TEQSA commenced the proceeding on 8 October 2024. Amended originating process was filed on 1 September 2025. The parties filed agreed facts, joint submissions and proposed consent orders on 20 February 2026. The hearing took place on 24 February 2026, and judgment and orders were delivered on 27 March 2026.

The public reasons available for this case include the orders, catchwords, introductory reasoning, agreed factual summary, legislative provisions and part of the statutory construction analysis. The available text cuts off part-way through the reasoning on construction, so some detailed analysis is not visible in the public version used here. The orders and the core factual and outcome points are, however, clear.