Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria v White Ray (Oakleigh) Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 497

Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria v White Ray (Oakleigh) Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 497 is a Federal Court penalty decision about misleading property price advertising. The case was not a contested trial about whether the conduct happened. Instead, the regulator and the real estate agency put forward agreed facts, agreed contraventions and a jointly proposed penalty outcome.

The Court accepted that, across nine residential property campaigns, the agency advertised indicative prices below both its own expectations and the actual sale prices achieved. The Court also accepted that the conduct was deliberate. It imposed total pecuniary penalties of $600,000, payable in two instalments, and made no order as to costs.

White Ray (Oakleigh) Pty Ltd operated a real estate agency. In the ordinary course of its business, it was retained by vendors to market and sell residential properties. That work involved making public statements about the properties, including statements touching on the price at which each property was expected to sell.

The Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria alleged that, in relation to nine residential properties marketed between 2022 and 2023, the agency advertised indicative prices that were materially below the prices it actually expected would be achieved. The Court recorded that on nine occasions between March 2022 and November 2023 the agency advertised properties at indicative prices that were substantially below the prices for which they ultimately sold. In some cases, the discrepancy exceeded 30%.

The agreed facts went further than simply showing a gap between the advertised figure and the final sale price. In most cases, the advertised amount was also substantially below the amount the agency itself expected would be realised. Those expectations were recorded in vendor documentation or internal communications. That point mattered because it showed a mismatch between what the agency knew internally and what it told the market publicly.

The case then moved to penalty on an agreed basis. By orders made on 11 June 2025, the claims against a former second respondent were dismissed by consent. After that, the Director and the agency reached an accord and jointly asked the Court to recognise the contraventions and impose pecuniary penalties totalling $600,000. The Court determined the matter on the papers.

The legal issues were narrower than they would have been in a fully contested trial. Because the parties had agreed the facts and jointly proposed the relief, the Court did not need to resolve a factual dispute about what happened in each campaign. Instead, it had to be satisfied that the admitted conduct amounted to contraventions, that the Director had standing to seek the relief, that the Court had jurisdiction to grant it, and that the proposed penalty was within the proper range.

The judgment dealt with two Australian Consumer Law provisions. Section 18 prohibits misleading or deceptive conduct in trade or commerce. Section 30(1)(c) prohibits making a false or misleading representation concerning the price payable for land in connection with the sale, possible sale or promotion of an interest in land. The Court recorded that, for each of the nine properties, the agency advertised an indicative sale price or price bracket in trade or commerce, that the advertised price was below what it expected the property would sell for and below the actual sale price, and that the representations were misleading or deceptive and false or misleading as to price.

The Court also had to address jurisdiction and standing because the Director's claims involved the Australian Consumer Law as it operates federally and as it is applied in Victoria. Justice Snaden held that the Court had original jurisdiction in relation to the federal aspects of the claims and could determine the whole justiciable controversy, including the Victorian law aspects. The Court also held that the Director had standing to seek the relief that the parties jointly proposed.

On penalty, the Court's task was to apply the statutory requirement to consider all relevant matters under section 224(2) of the Australian Consumer Law and to assess the jointly proposed penalty using the established approach to agreed penalties. The question was not whether the parties' agreement bound the Court. It was whether the proposed amount fell within the range the Court itself would properly impose.

Justice Snaden held that it was appropriate to grant relief substantially in the form jointly proposed by the parties. The Court accepted that the agency had contravened section 30(1)(c) of the Australian Consumer Law on nine occasions, one occasion related to each of the nine properties. The Court also accepted the agreed position that the same conduct contravened section 18.

The Court ordered the agency to pay pecuniary penalties totalling $600,000 to the State of Victoria. The payment timetable was split into two instalments: $300,000 within 15 days of the orders and $300,000 within six months. There was no order as to costs.

A key feature of the judgment is the Court's treatment of the conduct as deliberate. The agreed facts stated that the representations were, in each case, deliberately misleading or deceptive and deliberately false or misleading as to price. That is an important point for businesses reading the case. The penalty was not imposed for a clerical slip, a one-off typo or a misunderstanding about a listing platform. It was imposed in a case where the public pricing was accepted to be deliberately set below the agency's own expectations.

The Court also accepted that the proposed penalty was within the boundaries of what it would reasonably have imposed independently of the parties' agreement. Justice Snaden said he had not the slightest hesitation in reaching that conclusion. The Court therefore endorsed the agreed outcome.

The judgment is especially useful for understanding the factors the Court considered when deciding whether $600,000 was an appropriate total penalty. Section 224(2) required the Court to consider all relevant matters, including the nature and extent of the conduct, any loss or damage, the circumstances attending the conduct, and whether the business had previously been found to have engaged in similar conduct.

Justice Snaden then listed the matters taken into account in accepting the agreed penalty. These included the nature and extent of the contravening acts, the circumstances of each instance of conduct, the agency's status as a first-time contravener, the maximum penalties available at the relevant times, the loss or damage caused or presumed to have been caused, the degree to which the agency profited from its conduct, the agency's size and financial position, the deliberateness of the conduct, the systems it had in place to ensure compliance, its willingness to address systemic shortfalls by remedial action, and its cooperation with the Director.

The Court noted that there was no precise evidence quantifying the harm caused by the misrepresentations. Even so, it accepted that the harm logically lay in creating false expectations among prospective purchasers and exposing them to wasted time and potentially wasted expenditure associated with considering purchases they might otherwise not have considered. That is a practical reminder that a regulator does not always need exact loss figures before a court will impose a serious penalty.

The judgment also mentions that some of the nine properties were sold on terms that contemplated sales commissions including bonuses linked to the degree to which the sale price exceeded the vendor's reserve. The Court did not say that such incentive structures are unlawful in themselves. But the fact they appeared in the factual background is a useful warning sign for businesses whose remuneration settings may create pressure to use aggressive public pricing tactics.

Although this case arose in residential property sales, the practical compliance message is broader. Many businesses use indicative pricing, teaser pricing, guide prices, starting-from prices or promotional price ranges to attract enquiries. The risk point is the same. If the public-facing price does not reflect what the business genuinely expects based on its internal knowledge, records or client instructions, the statement may be misleading.

This judgment is particularly important because the Court accepted that the conduct was deliberate and because the business was still penalised heavily despite being a small business that later cooperated and improved its systems. That combination tells business owners two things. First, deliberate low pricing to generate interest is high risk. Second, post-issue cooperation and remediation may help on penalty, but they are not a substitute for getting the advertising right in the first place.

For directors, owners and managers, the systems point is central. The agency accepted that it did not have systems adequate to ensure that its price representations complied with the Australian Consumer Law. In practice, that often means there was no reliable approval process, no documented basis for the advertised figure, no check against internal forecasts or client instructions, and no escalation process when expectations changed. If your internal emails, CRM notes, pricing spreadsheets or client documents point to a higher expected price than the one being advertised, that is a clear warning sign.

The case also shows that each separate campaign or transaction can matter. Here, the Court recorded nine separate contraventions under section 30(1)(c), one for each property. Businesses should not assume that repeated use of the same pricing approach will be treated as a single problem. Repetition can increase exposure.

The originating application was dated 11 October 2024. Claims against a former second respondent were dismissed by consent on 11 June 2025. The matter was determined on the papers, with the date of last submissions recorded as 25 March 2026. Judgment and final orders were delivered on 24 April 2026.

The decision is a penalty judgment based on admitted contraventions and agreed facts. It is therefore most useful as guidance on how the Federal Court approaches deliberate misleading price conduct, agreed penalties, and the weight given to matters such as cooperation, remediation, profit, business size and compliance systems.

This page is based on the Federal Court of Australia judgment in Director of Consumer Affairs Victoria v White Ray (Oakleigh) Pty Ltd [2026] FCA 497, delivered on 24 April 2026 by Justice Snaden.

The reasons clearly support the admitted contraventions, the deliberate nature of the conduct, the fact that there were nine separate contraventions under section 30(1)(c), the penalty factors considered, and the final orders. The reasons do not provide a full narrative for each individual property campaign, so this explainer focuses on the points the judgment itself establishes.