Competition and Consumer Act 2010

The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) is a central trading law for businesses operating in Australia. It contains the Australian Consumer Law in Schedule 2 and also includes substantial competition law provisions. In practical terms, that means the Act can affect both how you deal with customers and how you deal with competitors, suppliers, distributors and other market participants.

For most businesses, the Act shows up in ordinary documents and workflows rather than in formal legal disputes. Common touchpoints include website terms, online shop terms, pricing pages, discount campaigns, refund policies, subscription settings, customer support scripts, franchise documents, supply arrangements and competitor-facing discussions. If your business markets, sells, contracts or structures commercial relationships in Australia, this Act is likely relevant.

The Act is also broad. It includes preliminary provisions about its object and application, establishes the ACCC and other institutions, contains restrictive trade practice rules, and includes specialised parts dealing with access and regulated sectors. This page focuses on the practical trigger points most businesses are likely to encounter in ordinary trading activity, especially customer-facing conduct, standard form contracts and competition-sensitive arrangements.

The Act is not limited to large corporations. Its preliminary provisions include application rules dealing with the Commonwealth, States and Territories, local government bodies in some contexts, conduct outside Australia, and persons who are not corporations. For business owners, the practical point is simple: do not assume the law only applies if you operate through a company.

That matters for sole traders, partnerships and other unincorporated businesses as well as companies. The exact way the Act applies can depend on the part of the legislation engaged and the facts, but the existence of extended application provisions means non-corporate businesses should not treat themselves as automatically outside scope. If you trade in Australia, sell to Australian customers, or enter arrangements that may affect competition, you should check the Act on the basis that it may apply.

Most consumer-facing businesses should assume the Australian Consumer Law side of the Act is relevant. That includes businesses selling goods, services, software, subscriptions, memberships, courses, platform access and other offerings to Australian customers. The competition parts of the Act become especially important where a business is dealing with competitors, acquisitions, supply chains, distribution systems, franchise structures or other arrangements that may affect market conduct.

Some parts of the Act are highly specialised and industry-specific. The table of contents shows detailed regimes for matters such as access to services and energy-related functions. If you are dealing with those specialised parts, you should check the specific provisions rather than relying only on a general business overview.

Many compliance problems under this Act start with routine business decisions rather than deliberate misconduct. A marketing team publishes a savings claim without keeping evidence. A founder copies a one-sided template from another business. A support team uses a no-refunds script that ignores consumer guarantees. A sales team agrees on a channel arrangement without checking competition risk. These are ordinary operational decisions, but they can create legal exposure quickly.

The safest approach is to identify the moments when legal review should happen before launch. In most businesses, those moments include publishing claims, changing pricing structures, introducing subscription or auto-renewal settings, updating standard terms, changing refund processes, and negotiating arrangements that may affect how businesses compete in the market.

Businesses often focus on the final contract and miss the surrounding conduct. Under this Act, risk can arise from the full customer or commercial journey: the ad, the landing page, the checkout, the support script, the renewal email, the cancellation process, or the way a proposed deal is discussed and implemented. A practical compliance system should therefore cover both documents and conduct.

One of the most common business touchpoints under the Act is the prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct. In practice, this means businesses need to look at the overall impression created by their conduct, not just whether each sentence is technically defensible in isolation. Headline claims, images, pricing layout, omissions, disclaimers and sales conversations can all contribute to the impression a customer receives.

This matters across websites, social media, email campaigns, sales calls, proposals and checkout flows. A claim about savings should be supportable. A free offer should not hide material costs or conditions. A performance or outcome claim should be backed by evidence before publication. A comparison with a competitor should be like-for-like and capable of proof. Fine print may help explain a claim, but it will not reliably fix a headline or presentation that points customers in the wrong direction.

A practical internal test is to ask what an ordinary customer would likely take away from the page, ad or conversation. If the likely takeaway is stronger than what you can prove, the claim should be revised before it goes live. This is especially important for businesses that rely on fast-moving campaigns, influencer content, sales teams or automated website updates, because unsupported claims can spread quickly across multiple channels.

The Act contains the Australian Consumer Law, which includes consumer guarantees applying to many supplies of goods and services. The legislation includes guarantees relating to goods such as acceptable quality, matching description and fitness for purpose, and guarantees relating to services such as due care and skill, fitness for purpose and supply within a reasonable time where no time is fixed. These rights arise by law.

For businesses, the practical issue is often not the written law but the way staff communicate with customers. A refund or returns policy can set out your approach to change-of-mind requests, but it should not suggest that statutory rights do not exist. Blanket no-refunds wording, statements that rights end when a manufacturer warranty ends, or support scripts that refuse to consider a consumer guarantee issue can all create problems.

Businesses should separate two different questions. First, what does the business choose to offer as a discretionary policy for change-of-mind situations? Second, what remedies may be available because the law gives the customer rights in relation to faulty goods, misdescribed goods or services that do not meet the required standard? Staff should be trained to recognise the difference.

This area often affects online businesses in particular. If your checkout, confirmation email, help centre or cancellation page gives customers an incomplete or misleading picture of their rights, the problem is not solved by having better wording hidden elsewhere. Customer-facing materials should work together and should be reviewed as a set.

The Act includes unfair contract term rules for standard form consumer contracts and standard form small-business contracts. For businesses that scale through templates, this is a major operational issue. It can affect website terms, online shop terms, SaaS terms, membership terms, supply agreements, marketplace rules and other standard documents used repeatedly without real negotiation.

The practical risk often sits in clauses that give one side broad control without a fair balancing mechanism. Common examples include unilateral rights to vary price, scope or features, broad suspension or termination rights, heavily one-sided indemnities, restrictive liability settings, and clauses allowing the business to retain deposits, credits or prepaid fees in ways customers or small-business counterparties would not reasonably expect.

The legislation is also relevant to how terms are presented. A clause may create more risk where it is buried in a click-through flow, not clearly available before the customer is bound, or paired with a sales process that gives the other party little real opportunity to understand the effect of the term. Businesses should review both the wording and the contracting process.

The date position also matters. Current public guidance associated with the Act notes that from 9 November 2023, proposing, using or relying on an unfair contract term can attract penalties. That means businesses should not treat unfair terms as a low-priority drafting issue. If you use standard form terms at scale, a proactive review is usually more efficient than waiting for complaints or enforcement attention.

The Act is not only about customer protection. It also contains major competition law provisions, including cartel conduct rules, acquisition-related provisions and other restrictive trade practice rules. For many smaller businesses, these issues arise less often than consumer law issues, but when they do arise the risk can be serious and should be checked early.

The current legislation table of contents shows detailed provisions dealing with cartel conduct, acquisitions, contracts or arrangements that affect competition, and related enforcement mechanisms. That is enough to make the practical point clear: businesses should not treat competitor discussions, channel restrictions or acquisition steps as purely commercial matters. They can engage a detailed legal regime under the Act.

Practical trigger points include discussions or arrangements with competitors, pricing or market allocation conduct, supply restrictions, channel arrangements, franchise systems, dealership structures and acquisitions. A business does not need to intend to break the law for risk to arise. The issue is whether the arrangement or conduct affects competition in a way the Act regulates.

This page is a practical overview only. The competition parts of the Act are detailed and context-specific. If a proposed deal changes how parties compete, sets or influences prices, allocates customers, restricts supply or otherwise shapes market behaviour, it should be reviewed before signing, announcing or implementing it.

The most effective way to manage this Act is to map it onto the documents and conduct your customers, counterparties and staff actually see. A business can have a well-drafted contract and still create risk through a misleading landing page, a checkout that hides key information, or a support script that overstates the business's rights. Compliance works best when legal review is tied to the customer journey and the commercial workflow.

Start with the path from advertising to after-sales support. Check whether the promises made in marketing match the contract and the real service. Then check whether the contract matches the support process. Inconsistencies between those stages are a common source of complaints and regulator attention.

For commercial arrangements, do the same exercise from proposal to implementation. Check what is said in negotiations, what the written documents allow, and how the arrangement will operate in practice. A channel or supply restriction that seems minor in a draft can have a much larger effect once rolled out across a network.

The legislation is in force. The current register metadata identifies the Act as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, notes the earlier citation history, and shows a current compilation applying from 28 March 2026 to 26 May 2026. As with any major Commonwealth Act, businesses should check the latest compilation before relying on a summary page, especially if they are dealing with a recent reform area such as unfair contract terms or acquisition notification requirements.

The Act has changed over time and continues to be amended. That matters because practical compliance settings can shift even where the business model stays the same. A template, campaign or process that was not reviewed recently may no longer reflect the current position. Before rollout, confirm that you are working from the latest legislation and that any related regulator guidance you use is current.

This Act is broad and frequently relevant, but the exact obligations depend on the part of the Act engaged and the facts of your business model. Before relying on a general overview, check whether you are dealing with consumer-facing conduct, standard form contracts, competition-sensitive arrangements, acquisitions or an industry-specific regime. Also check whether your business structure, counterparties and geographic footprint raise application issues, including conduct outside Australia or conduct by persons who are not corporations.

If you are updating customer terms, launching a new campaign, changing subscription settings or entering a commercial arrangement that may affect competition, a targeted legal review is usually more useful than relying on a high-level summary. The cost of checking early is often much lower than fixing a rolled-out process later.

Businesses often ask whether this Act is only relevant to large companies, whether it is just a consumer law, and whether online terms or refund policies can solve compliance issues on their own. The short answer is no. The Act can apply more broadly than many operators expect, it covers both consumer and competition issues, and practical compliance depends on the whole customer or commercial process rather than one document in isolation.

If you are a sole trader or partnership, use standard form terms, run subscriptions, publish strong claims, or deal with competitors, suppliers or channel partners in ways that may affect market conduct, this Act should be on your legal checklist. The safest time to check it is before launch or implementation, not after complaints start.