Trade practices
Trade practices laws regulate a wide spectrum of business
activity in all states and territories. They are designed to
protect and compensate both consumers and businesses from unfair, misleading and anti-competitive conduct. These
laws also set minimum terms as to quality in some contracts for the
sale of goods or services, and regulate product liability.
Maurice Blackburn Commercial's lawyers are happy to discuss your
rights and provide you with advice about your obligations in the
field of trade practices.
Some examples of the variety of trade practices matters in which
we have recently assisted (and, in some cases, continue to assist)
our clients include:
- pursuing a class action on behalf of shareholders who bought
shares in a company because of allegedly misleading and deceptive
statements made by a company and its directors about the potential
of a new data compression technology
- pursuing a claim on behalf of businesses against seven major
international airlines claiming losses suffered as a result of the
airline's price-fixing arrangements to set fuel, security and
war-risk insurance surcharges in international air freight
services
- defending claims made by a lender against a number of investors
in a managed investment scheme. In that case, the investors
borrowed to fund the establishment of a business that subsequently
failed. It is claimed that the prospectus was misleading and
that an entity related to the lender mismanaged the scheme
- representing a manufacturer in Federal Court proceedings
against a rival, where that rival was alleged to have falsely
advertised the quality of its products and, by doing so, taken
market share from our client. In that case, we reached a
substantial commercial settlement
- advising a retailer about the text of its advertisements, which
made claims in relation to a competitor's products, to minimise its
exposure to claims of misleading and deceptive conduct
- advising a client in relation to obligations regarding an ACCC
investigation into anti-competitive conduct and his submissions to
the ACCC in response to a section 155 notice.
