This week, the Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Gina Cass-Gottlieb, outlined the ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities for 2025–26 at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.
Overview
For 2025–26, the ACCC will address ongoing consumer and competition concerns amidst rising cost-of-living pressures, with increased scrutiny on the supermarket and retail sectors.
The ACCC’s enforcement and compliance priorities for 2025-26 are:
- Competition issues in the supermarket and retail sector, focussing on firms with market power and conduct that impacts small business.
- Consumer and fair trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sectors, with a focus on misleading pricing practices.
- Promoting competition in essential services with a focus on telecommunications, electricity, and gas.
- Misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services, with a particular focus on energy and telecommunications.
- Competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector.
- Competition, product safety, consumer and fair trading issues in the digital economy, with a focus on misleading or deceptive advertising within influencer marketing, online reviews, in-app purchases and unsafe consumer products.
- Misleading surcharging practices and other add-on costs.
- Consumer, fair trading and competition concerns in relation to environmental claims and sustainability, with a focus on greenwashing.
- Unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts, with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including those associated with automatic renewals, early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses.
- Improving industry compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on consumer electronics.
- Improving compliance by NDIS providers with their obligations under Australian Consumer Law.
- Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery standards and raising awareness about new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards.
What has changed since last year?
The ACCC has expanded its focus, increasing the number of priorities from 10 in 2024 to 12 in 2025. The key changes include:
- Misleading pricing and add-on costs: the ACCC will focus on misleading pricing practices, including surcharging and other add-on costs during 2025-26.
- Supermarket and retail sector: the ACCC will expand its focus from just supermarket competition in food and groceries to cover the entire retail sector. This includes targeting firms with significant market power and examining their impact on small businesses.
- Environmental claims: while general sustainability concerns were a focus last year, the ACCC will specifically focus on greenwashing in 2025.
- Unfair contract terms: the ACCC continues to address unfair contract terms, but with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including auto-renewals, early termination fees, and non-cancellation clauses.
- Digital economy: more scrutiny will be given to the sale of unsafe consumer products online, in addition to the existing areas of concern in the digital economy space – being misleading advertising, influencer marketing, and in-app purchases.
- Safety for young children: continuing its commitment to the safety of young children, the ACCC will pay closer attention to compliance with button battery standards and new safety regulations for infant sleep products and furniture.
Key areas of focus
Supermarket and retail sector
This year, the ACCC will prioritise competition issues within both the supermarket and the broader retail sector generally, with a focus on businesses with significant market power and conduct which impacts small businesses. This follows a 2024 inquiry into supermarket pricing and competition which found that this market was highly concentrated (with Coles and Woolworths controlling about 67% of national supermarket sales).
Addressing misleading pricing practices is also a key focus point, reinforcing the ACCC’s commitment to fair trading and pricing transparency.
Essential services
Market concentration is a significant concern not only in the supermarket sector but also in essential services such as telecommunications and energy. Coupled with the rising cost of living, Australian consumers and small businesses are increasingly vulnerable to anti-competitive conduct.
Following on from its 2024 efforts – which involved recommendations to improve competition and consumer outcomes in the energy sector (such as reducing regulatory barriers to new investments), the ACCC will continue to prioritise competition in telecommunications, electricity, and gas throughout 2025-26.
Digital economy
With the Australian online search and display advertising market valued at $13 billion in the 2024 financial year, the digital economy remains a core focus for the ACCC. Competitive, contestable, and safe digital markets are considered vital to Australia’s economy. The ACCC has reaffirmed its commitment to investigating anti-competitive conduct within digital markets, recognising that the dominance of key digital platforms has significant implications for competition and consumer welfare.
The ACCC is also working alongside the Treasury to implement a new digital competition regime, aimed at addressing harmful practices within digital platform markets. This new regime will specifically target conduct that is anti-competitive, creates barriers to entry, or exploits market power to the detriment of Australian consumers and businesses. The ACCC’s compliance and enforcement efforts in this area will remain a priority throughout 2025-26.
Unfair contract terms
The ACCC continues to target unfair contract terms. This year, particular focus will be given to harmful practices such auto-renewals, early termination fees, and non-cancellation clauses. Businesses will be expected to ensure that their contract terms are clear, fair, and do not disadvantage consumers or small businesses.
Environment and sustainability
The ACCC continues to prioritise environmental claims, recognising that many Australians consider these claims when deciding where to spend their money. It is essential that such claims are accurate and substantiated to maintain consumer trust.
For the 2025-26 period, particular focus will be given to greenwashing. The ACCC has several ongoing investigations into misleading green claims across various sectors, including energy, food, and homewares.
Additionally, the ACCC has published a guide on sustainability collaborations, highlighting that when businesses work together to improve sustainability outcomes, competition law issues are less likely to arise. This guidance aims to encourage responsible collaboration while ensuring compliance with competition regulations.
Young children
Product safety for young children remains an enforcement priority, with particular attention to button battery compliance and raising awareness of new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards. The ACCC will continue monitoring compliance and educating businesses and consumers about these critical safety regulations.
Misleading surcharges and add-on costs
A new enforcement priority for the ACCC in 2025–26 is tackling misleading surcharge practices. This builds on the ACCC’s 2024 efforts, where $2.1 million in funding was allocated to address excessive card surcharges. Moving forward, the ACCC will ensure that businesses comply with prohibitions on excessive surcharges and that all additional costs are accurately disclosed to consumers.
Unfair trading practices
The ACCC is actively advocating for reforms to prohibit unfair trading practices, recognising that both online and offline commerce have become increasingly complex and sophisticated. New techniques used by businesses to influence consumer decision-making can sometimes distort fair competition. To address these concerns, the ACCC is pushing for updates to Australia’s consumer protection framework to bring it in line with international best practices.
New merger regime
Although not designated as a specific compliance or enforcement priority, Ms Cass-Gottlieb also referenced the upcoming new merger control regime, which will take effect on January 1, 2026, with voluntary notification available from July 1, 2025. The new regime is expected to bring significant changes to how mergers are reviewed and regulated in Australia. The ACCC has emphasised that successful implementation, compliance monitoring, and enforcement of this regime will be a key focus in the coming year.
More details on the new merger regime can be found here.
Enduring priorities
Certain forms of conduct pose significant risks to consumer welfare and market competition, prompting the ACCC to assign dedicated teams to address them as long-term priorities. These priorities remain consistent with those in 2024–25:
- Cartel conduct: prioritising cartel behaviour that causes harm in Australia, including international cartels with a connection to the country.
- Anti-competitive conduct: targeting anti-competitive agreements, practices, and misuse of market power.
- Product safety: addressing safety concerns that pose serious risks to consumers.
- Consumers experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage: focusing on conduct that disproportionately affects vulnerable consumers.
- Conduct impacting First Nations Australians: recognising the unique challenges faced by First Nations consumers, particularly in remote areas.
- Small business protections: ensuring competition and consumer laws safeguard small businesses and the agricultural sector.
- Scam prevention: supporting the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) in detecting and disrupting scams.
Next steps
The ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities for 2025-26 reflect a significant step in addressing consumer and competition issues in Australia.
If you have any questions or concerns as to how these changes may affect you, please do not hesitate to contact our competition and consumer law specialists in our Digital & IP team at here.
The ACCC’s media release can be accessed here: Retail pricing, merger reform implementation and competition issues among ACCC’s 2025-26 priorities | ACCC
This publication covers legal and technical issues in a general way. It is not designed to express opinions on specific cases. It is intended for information purposes only and should not be regarded as legal advice. Further advice should be obtained before taking action on any issue dealt with in this publication.Overview
For 2025–26, the ACCC will address ongoing consumer and competition concerns amidst rising cost-of-living pressures, with increased scrutiny on the supermarket and retail sectors.
The ACCC’s enforcement and compliance priorities for 2025-26 are:
- Competition issues in the supermarket and retail sector, focussing on firms with market power and conduct that impacts small business.
- Consumer and fair trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sectors, with a focus on misleading pricing practices.
- Promoting competition in essential services with a focus on telecommunications, electricity, and gas.
- Misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services, with a particular focus on energy and telecommunications.
- Competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector.
- Competition, product safety, consumer and fair trading issues in the digital economy, with a focus on misleading or deceptive advertising within influencer marketing, online reviews, in-app purchases and unsafe consumer products.
- Misleading surcharging practices and other add-on costs.
- Consumer, fair trading and competition concerns in relation to environmental claims and sustainability, with a focus on greenwashing.
- Unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts, with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including those associated with automatic renewals, early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses.
- Improving industry compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on consumer electronics.
- Improving compliance by NDIS providers with their obligations under Australian Consumer Law.
- Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery standards and raising awareness about new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards.
What has changed since last year?
The ACCC has expanded its focus, increasing the number of priorities from 10 in 2024 to 12 in 2025. The key changes include:
- Misleading pricing and add-on costs: the ACCC will focus on misleading pricing practices, including surcharging and other add-on costs during 2025-26.
- Supermarket and retail sector: the ACCC will expand its focus from just supermarket competition in food and groceries to cover the entire retail sector. This includes targeting firms with significant market power and examining their impact on small businesses.
- Environmental claims: while general sustainability concerns were a focus last year, the ACCC will specifically focus on greenwashing in 2025.
- Unfair contract terms: the ACCC continues to address unfair contract terms, but with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including auto-renewals, early termination fees, and non-cancellation clauses.
- Digital economy: more scrutiny will be given to the sale of unsafe consumer products online, in addition to the existing areas of concern in the digital economy space – being misleading advertising, influencer marketing, and in-app purchases.
- Safety for young children: continuing its commitment to the safety of young children, the ACCC will pay closer attention to compliance with button battery standards and new safety regulations for infant sleep products and furniture.
Key areas of focus
Supermarket and retail sector
This year, the ACCC will prioritise competition issues within both the supermarket and the broader retail sector generally, with a focus on businesses with significant market power and conduct which impacts small businesses. This follows a 2024 inquiry into supermarket pricing and competition which found that this market was highly concentrated (with Coles and Woolworths controlling about 67% of national supermarket sales).
Addressing misleading pricing practices is also a key focus point, reinforcing the ACCC’s commitment to fair trading and pricing transparency.
Essential services
Market concentration is a significant concern not only in the supermarket sector but also in essential services such as telecommunications and energy. Coupled with the rising cost of living, Australian consumers and small businesses are increasingly vulnerable to anti-competitive conduct.
Following on from its 2024 efforts – which involved recommendations to improve competition and consumer outcomes in the energy sector (such as reducing regulatory barriers to new investments), the ACCC will continue to prioritise competition in telecommunications, electricity, and gas throughout 2025-26.
Digital economy
With the Australian online search and display advertising market valued at $13 billion in the 2024 financial year, the digital economy remains a core focus for the ACCC. Competitive, contestable, and safe digital markets are considered vital to Australia’s economy. The ACCC has reaffirmed its commitment to investigating anti-competitive conduct within digital markets, recognising that the dominance of key digital platforms has significant implications for competition and consumer welfare.
The ACCC is also working alongside the Treasury to implement a new digital competition regime, aimed at addressing harmful practices within digital platform markets. This new regime will specifically target conduct that is anti-competitive, creates barriers to entry, or exploits market power to the detriment of Australian consumers and businesses. The ACCC’s compliance and enforcement efforts in this area will remain a priority throughout 2025-26.
Unfair contract terms
The ACCC continues to target unfair contract terms. This year, particular focus will be given to harmful practices such auto-renewals, early termination fees, and non-cancellation clauses. Businesses will be expected to ensure that their contract terms are clear, fair, and do not disadvantage consumers or small businesses.
Environment and sustainability
The ACCC continues to prioritise environmental claims, recognising that many Australians consider these claims when deciding where to spend their money. It is essential that such claims are accurate and substantiated to maintain consumer trust.
For the 2025-26 period, particular focus will be given to greenwashing. The ACCC has several ongoing investigations into misleading green claims across various sectors, including energy, food, and homewares.
Additionally, the ACCC has published a guide on sustainability collaborations, highlighting that when businesses work together to improve sustainability outcomes, competition law issues are less likely to arise. This guidance aims to encourage responsible collaboration while ensuring compliance with competition regulations.
Young children
Product safety for young children remains an enforcement priority, with particular attention to button battery compliance and raising awareness of new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards. The ACCC will continue monitoring compliance and educating businesses and consumers about these critical safety regulations.
Misleading surcharges and add-on costs
A new enforcement priority for the ACCC in 2025–26 is tackling misleading surcharge practices. This builds on the ACCC’s 2024 efforts, where $2.1 million in funding was allocated to address excessive card surcharges. Moving forward, the ACCC will ensure that businesses comply with prohibitions on excessive surcharges and that all additional costs are accurately disclosed to consumers.
Unfair trading practices
The ACCC is actively advocating for reforms to prohibit unfair trading practices, recognising that both online and offline commerce have become increasingly complex and sophisticated. New techniques used by businesses to influence consumer decision-making can sometimes distort fair competition. To address these concerns, the ACCC is pushing for updates to Australia’s consumer protection framework to bring it in line with international best practices.
New merger regime
Although not designated as a specific compliance or enforcement priority, Ms Cass-Gottlieb also referenced the upcoming new merger control regime, which will take effect on January 1, 2026, with voluntary notification available from July 1, 2025. The new regime is expected to bring significant changes to how mergers are reviewed and regulated in Australia. The ACCC has emphasised that successful implementation, compliance monitoring, and enforcement of this regime will be a key focus in the coming year.
More details on the new merger regime can be found here.
Enduring priorities
Certain forms of conduct pose significant risks to consumer welfare and market competition, prompting the ACCC to assign dedicated teams to address them as long-term priorities. These priorities remain consistent with those in 2024–25:
- Cartel conduct: prioritising cartel behaviour that causes harm in Australia, including international cartels with a connection to the country.
- Anti-competitive conduct: targeting anti-competitive agreements, practices, and misuse of market power.
- Product safety: addressing safety concerns that pose serious risks to consumers.
- Consumers experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage: focusing on conduct that disproportionately affects vulnerable consumers.
- Conduct impacting First Nations Australians: recognising the unique challenges faced by First Nations consumers, particularly in remote areas.
- Small business protections: ensuring competition and consumer laws safeguard small businesses and the agricultural sector.
- Scam prevention: supporting the National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC) in detecting and disrupting scams.
Next steps
The ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities for 2025-26 reflect a significant step in addressing consumer and competition issues in Australia.
If you have any questions or concerns as to how these changes may affect you, please do not hesitate to contact our competition and consumer law specialists in our Digital & IP team at here.
The ACCC’s media release can be accessed here: Retail pricing, merger reform implementation and competition issues among ACCC’s 2025-26 priorities | ACCC
This publication covers legal and technical issues in a general way. It is not designed to express opinions on specific cases. It is intended for information purposes only and should not be regarded as legal advice. Further advice should be obtained before taking action on any issue dealt with in this publication.
