Clancy Yeates
May 15, 2012
The Age
AN INQUIRY into price signalling by petrol stations has reignited criticism of the government’s move to ban the practice only in the banking industry.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission this month launched a probe into price sharing among petrol stations through a data aggregation website called Informed Sources.
The investigation will assess whether petrol stations are contravening laws that prohibit companies from agreeing to exchange information in a way that lessens competition.
However, the watchdog cannot pursue the case under upcoming laws banning ”price signalling” – where companies communicate their plans to rivals. The laws, which come into force in July, will apply only to banks.
A former ACCC commissioner who now works at Monash University, Stephen King, said the watchdog’s task would have been much easier if the government had followed the ACCC’s advice and implemented a price-signalling ban throughout the whole economy.
”If you have good laws, they either apply to all sectors of the business community, or why have them?” Professor King said.
”Clearly if the bank price-signalling rules applied to the rest of the business community it would be much easier for the ACCC to tackle price signalling in petrol, and to tackle price signalling in a range of areas of the economy.”
Recent comments by ACCC chairman Rod Sims suggest that even among the banks – which will be subjected to the ban – there will be few prosecutions. Mr Sims also described the focus on banks as ”unfortunate” earlier this month.
The Coalition’s spokesman for competition, Bruce Billson, has pledged to ban price signalling throughout the economy, and said the ACCC inquiry would pressure the government to expand its ban.
”This is about the commission reminding the government why it sought to have expanded price-signalling powers, a repeated call the government has refused to heed,” he said.
The government has the option of extending the ban, but it has said this would occur only if a strong case was made.
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