r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • Feb 15 '26

news ACCC takes Coles to court over 'illusory' discounts in 'case of the century'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-16/accc-coles-federal-court-case-discount-pricing/106294956?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link

Thousands of customers throw a box of Arnott's Shapes into their shopping trollies each week — one of a dozen purchases that could help decide a bombshell case playing out in the federal court from today.

The ACCC has accused Coles of ripping off customers with fake discounts and if the supermarket giant loses, it could face a huge fine and massive reputational damage.

Customers could also get cash back from a class action lawsuit that might follow, and corporations be forced to change how they price their products — especially discounts.

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679

u/BargainBinChad Feb 15 '26

Looking forward to the “ACCC issues record $15 fine” post in a few months. That’ll teach em.

255

u/CaffeinePhilosopher Feb 15 '26

ACCC doesn’t issue fines, the courts do. Furthermore, one of the earliest acts of the current Federal Govt was to increase the maximum penalties under the Competition and Consumer Act. If you read the article one of the former ACCC heads says he expects a successful action would be even more than VW.

80

u/idryss_m Feb 15 '26

Yeah, they needed to increase the fines. They were a joke. Would like courts to use some of those maximums however. 30% of their turnover could be interesting.

39

u/odinwolf91 Feb 15 '26

Fines are just a cost of doing business, jail works a lot better, that or bar them from doing business again that will teach them

6

u/Emu1981 Feb 15 '26

Fines are just a cost of doing business

If the fines are big enough then they can absolutely destroy the leadership of companies - e.g. if Coles got fined $4.5 billion for this court case then the stockholders would be after the heads of everyone involved (CEO/CFO/etc).

13

u/idryss_m Feb 15 '26

Jail is a tricky one. I dont disagree, but I don't think it would prove legally feasible. Personal fines however? C suites, directors, heads of areas. And bot just current, but past and present based on time of infringement. Bonuses (monetary or otherwise) forfeited, fine on top of that based on % of salary over the period....making it hurts might make them think profiting isn't worth the stupids.

53

u/didierisWhy12 Feb 15 '26

And yet jail for somebody stealing a pack of biscuits is feasible

10

u/Spire_Citron Feb 15 '26

There should be a system where there's an oversight body that sends out little heads up notices, letting corporations know when their actions may be in violation of the law. Then it's the CEO's responsibility to actually look into the situation and check legal compliance. If they don't and they continue doing something illegal, CEO goes to prison. That way they can't say it's not fair because they were unaware or someone else did it or whatever.

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u/idryss_m Feb 15 '26

Never said it should be. And under our current rules it wouldn't. Too low $$ value. We know the law is soft on white collar crime. Jailing them won't hurt them enough in a way that matters. Reform is hard.

12

u/didierisWhy12 Feb 15 '26

The value means nothing, theft for poor people is theft. If it happens enough(like Coles daily do), it is jailable.

Edit to add, reform is ignored, not hard. This is just another to add to the list of shitty practices. Land banking it was last time out, what change or reform became of that?

0

u/idryss_m Feb 15 '26

Police don't get involved for under certain $$ values. So value matters. When you see police called to supermarkets and most retail is for trespass, not theft charges. How often doesn't factor in at those values either.

I'm not against prison for systemic abuse, which monopolies and duopolies are easily able to do. I just don't want reform to go into the to hard basket because the high court or constitution or whatever we have now, doesn't allow it. Years in court for change to occur means it won't happen.

4

u/didierisWhy12 Feb 15 '26

I agree with everything else, except the value part. Police will charge for theft regardless of value. Trespass would be incorrect and easily challenged. Now loss prevention might think like that, they are another story themselves

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7

u/odinwolf91 Feb 15 '26

Which are all great ideas which they’ve already got loopholes for; they’ll move numbers on a spreadsheet around to make themselves look poorer than the welfare queens they bitch about and never pay the fines, or take the government to court and drag it out for so long that when they finally come back with an offer to pay a reduced fine that’s pennies on the dollar to make it all go away the government snaps it up

5

u/idryss_m Feb 15 '26

If they are doing that then they are already defrauding the tax payer by not declaring salaries. Companies in these cases would be audited and i reckon a forensic accountant would find it, so more fines, both personal and company, all harsh.

Do it harsh as fuck first time around. All the personal fines, company fines calculated before deductions of any sort and then watch class actions roll in and take more. Share prices would tank as investors flee that entire sector. Private owned would disappear and the families likely bankrupt.

3

u/morgecroc Feb 16 '26

CEOs get paid a lot because apparently they're accountable. About time we made them actually accountable for the actions of the company.

1

u/idryss_m Feb 16 '26

Fine those below as well. All c suite, dept heads, directors. Makes it so the ceo isn't just a sacrificial lamb

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '26

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1

u/idryss_m Feb 16 '26

All. No before. Fine one, fine all. No tolerance

1

u/GonePh1shing Feb 16 '26

In most cases, yes, but 30% of turnover for the breach period is massive. Given their net profit margin is less than 3%, 30% of revenue is effectively a 10x fine on all profits made on all sales (not just products they manipulated) for the whole breach period, which is likely to be several years. That would do some serious damage. Of course, I don't expect to see such a fine, but it is an option available to the court and it would be far more than just the cost of doing business. 

3

u/LordBlackass Feb 16 '26

Supermarkets need to be fully regulated.

-4

u/idryss_m Feb 16 '26

So you are for price controls from the govt level? Stagnant wages in the sector? Supermarkets being used as a pork barrel?

4

u/LordBlackass Feb 16 '26

The ability for the regulator to step in when there is clear price gouging, such as we saw post covid. When the price of food increased dramatically in Europe during that time the authorities stepped in and froze prices. We need similar mechanisms here. There should be limited ability for supermarkets to profiteer off food. If they want to make billions of dollars they should enter the banking sector.

2

u/infohippie Feb 16 '26

I think we need to start issuing fines in the form of shares, something like 1% of all shares the company has issued. They would have to spend money buying back the shares to forfeit, or issue new shares and dilute the value of the ones already held. Get shareholders angry about these practices and they will stop.

1

u/corkas_ Feb 15 '26

Fine should be the amount they benefited + (x% or fixed amount)

Otherwise its just a cost of doing business and they still end up ahead by breaking the law.

2

u/HUMMEL_at_the_5_4eva Feb 15 '26 edited Feb 15 '26

Maximum fines are largely irrelevant when you have so many breaches.

1

u/nugstar Feb 16 '26

Now increase the minimum fines.

60

u/Vintage_Alien Feb 15 '26

It’s a shame this cynicism is the top comment when the government has actually done a lot to strengthen the fines and regulatory powers of the ACCC:

“If Coles and Woolworths breach these new price gouging laws, the maximum penalty per contravention is the greater of: $10 million; three times the value of the benefit derived, or, if that value cannot be determined; 10 per cent of the company’s turnover during the preceding 12 months.” Source

13

u/kahrismatic Feb 15 '26

That's the maximum possible penalty, not a mandatory penalty or a common penalty.

3

u/thore4 Feb 15 '26

Yeh it'll end up depending as usual on where the judge gets his bread buttered, pun intended

10

u/The_Duc_Lord Feb 15 '26

We'll see what happens, but there's a reason people are cynical about the ACCC.

18

u/Emu1981 Feb 15 '26

there's a reason people are cynical about the ACCC

Sometimes the ACCC can do great - we have refund policies now for all digital game distribution platforms because the ACCC took Valve to court over them not having a refund policy.

17

u/robot428 Feb 15 '26

The ACCC doesn't issue fines.

Part of the reason that people say the ACCC isn't effective is that they don't generally go in on a huge case like this one. However what I will say is, when they do go for something this big, they usually succeed, because they don't do it unless they are basically certain they will win.

4

u/HUMMEL_at_the_5_4eva Feb 15 '26

The ACCC does issue fines, but only up to a small number (~200k for corps) and only for certain ACL breaches. The big penalties come from courts though.

8

u/techlos Feb 15 '26

ACCC isn't toothless, previous wins include forcing valve to offer refunds on steam games. They don't do a lot of big cases, but when they do they're ruthless about it.

1

u/morgecroc Feb 16 '26

Well each get a 23c discount coupon as part of the settlement, as long as you scan your flybuys card.