Australian Consumer Law Essay

The ACCC brought proceedings in the federal court against HPA charging that HPA had breached Australian consumer law by making false and misleading representation to customers and retailers when it comes to their rights under Australian consumer law. Federal law penalized HPA a $3 million civil penalty for making false or misleading representations. After an agreement between HPA and ACCC under federal court HPA admitted that it had made the following false or misleading representations:

1. HPA had, through internal policies, guidelines and scripts developed by HPA and implemented by the staff employed at help desks around the world (to deal with customer service enquiries and complaints), represented to consumers that:

• The remedies available

Mr Zappelli was also banned by the federal court of Australia from being a company director for six years, and restrained Dimmeys from selling any product matter to a product safety standard for the same period. The penalty allocation was, Dimmeys Stores Pty Ltd $3 million, Starite Distributors Pty Ltd $600,000, and Mr Zappelli $120,000. They also have to advertise about the decision that court declared in newspapers across Victoria and New South Wales, on their website and in all their stores. They also had to destroy all their seized products with their own expense. Consumer Affairs Victoria issued proceedings in late 2012 after inspectors removed more than 18,000 items of girls’ padded swimwear, baby bath squeeze toy sets, cosmetics sets and basketball rings from Dimmeys stores in Victoria and New South Wales. The girls' padded swimwear did not able to meet the required labelling under flotation aid safety standards, the squeeze toys had a choking risk, the cosmetics sets did not label ingredients as prescribed by the Cosmetics Information Standard, and the basketball rings did not include warnings required under the Basketball Rings Standard. ACL regulators had taken four previous court proceedings for product safety breaches on Dimmeys. This is the first case which Consumer Affairs Victoria has taken in the Federal Court, which upheld the regulator’s right to bring this action in July 2013 when it was challenged by Dimmeys, Starite and Mr