ACCC’s Rod Sims will accept a workable supermarket industry code

John Durie
February 21, 2013
The Australian

AUSTRALIAN Competition and Consumer Commission chief Rod Sims has endorsed the concept of an industry code to govern supermarket supplier issues, provided the code is workable and real.

In a lunchtime address to the CEDA conference in Sydney, Sims outlined his priorities for the year, starting with strong enforcement , the need for the ACCC to be proactive, to get its big calls right and to be practical.

“This means grounding our decisions in real-world understanding, gained in part through detailed discussion with the parties and those familiar with the industry and the circumstances,” he noted.

The speech came after the Federal Government started the process to reappoint Michael Schaper as deputy commissioner of the ACCC and Sarah Court as commissioner, and Cristina Cifuentes as associate commissioner.

Cifuentes is the newcomer, replacing longtime commissioner and rugby tragic Ed Willet.

Assuming she is endorsed by the states, Cifuentes has an ideal background to cover energy and infrastructure regulation. With degrees in economics and law, including the Sydney University Medal for first class honours in 1994, she has had stints at Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Reserve Bank and more recently served on the boards of fund managers including First State, BNP, Perpetual and as an economist with Rothschild.

In his speech today, Sims said the focus would remain on “highly concentrated sectors” and in supermarkets and fuel.

“We have also decided to place further emphasis on online competition and consumer issues,” he added

Sims said that from what he had seen in the ACCC’s investigations on supermarkets, “we have seen enough to realise there is a merit in a code”.

The supermarkets, the National Farmers’ Federation and Food and Grocery Council including Coca Cola Amatil and Kraft have hired G&T lawyer Gina Cass Gottlieb to draw up a code to submit to the ACCC for inclusion in the Consumer and Competition Act.

They aim to launch the code around Easter. It is an attempt to minimise the political fallout over supermarket power in an election year.