CLASS ACTIONS
The Australian Law Reform Commission ("ALRC") stated in 1979 that:
"In a class action one or more persons ("the plaintiff") may sue on his own behalf and on behalf of a large number of other persons ("the class") who have the same interest in the subject of the action as the plaintiff. The class members are not usually named as individual parties but are merely described. Although they do not take any active part in the litigation, they may nevertheless be bound by the result. It is thus a device for multi-party litigation where the interests of a number of parties can be combined in one suit.
The later ALRC 1988 report adopted the broader approach and said that a class action:
"is a generic term for a procedure whereby the claims of many individuals against the same defendant can be brought or conducted by a single representative.
In other words, there are two features that distinguish class actions from other procedures involving multiple parties:
- Class actions may include claims for damages and the amount may vary from person to person,
- Class actions can be commenced without the consent of, or need to identify, each group member.
There are recognised advantages and some disadvantages of class actions; however, Hale Legal can advise on the best action to take and see it through to completion.
COMPETITION LAW
Competition law is a body of Australian law that has its counterpart in other jurisdictions, most notably, the United States of America where it is known as 'antitrust law', and other free market economies such as those in the European Union and the United Kingdom. In Australia, the relevant statute is the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).
Competition means a struggle for contention for superiority, and in the commercial world this means a striving for the custom and business of people in the marketplace. However, competition law came into being to protect the public and the commercial world against unfair and sometimes unscrupulous activity that is contrary to fair competition.
Practices controlled by competition law include, but are not limited to:
- Anti-competitive agreements between competitors, for example to fix prices (cartels), or to restrict output -- horizontal agreements; or suppliers instructing retailers to fix prices -- vertical agreements.
- The essential facilities doctrine is a competition (antitrust) concept that can require a firm that controls a facility or input that competitors need to provide access on reasonable terms, where refusing access would eliminate effective competition in a downstream market. Examples are: rail infrastructure, ports, telecommunications, pipelines, power transmission networks, software interfaces or dominant digital platforms.
- Abusive behaviour by a monopolist by 'dumping' products at prices, less than the cost, on to the market to harm competitors without such market-power.
- Abusive behaviour by an oligopsonist (a dominant consumer) using its dominant position to control suppliers.
- Mergers between firms that could be harmful to the competitive process, thus depriving the consumer of choice.
- Consumer protection against unfair and unscrupulous behaviour by suppliers.
Hale Legal can advise commercial enterprises on competition law in all the free market economies mentioned above.
Hale Legal can also advise consumers individually or as a class. See our section on 'Class Actions'.