ACCC announces its Compliance and Enforcement Priorities for 2025-2026

On 20 February 2025, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) announced its 2025 to 2026 Compliance and Enforcement Priorities (the ACCC’s Priorities). The ACCC’s Priorities continue to be consistent with its legislative mandate which aims to protect Australian consumers and promote competition. 

The ACCC’s Priorities include:

• Competition, consumer and fair-trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sector.
• Promoting competition in essential services: there will be continued focus on competition for essential services where due to increased costs of living and costs of doing business, businesses and individuals are “vulnerable to anti-competitive conduct in essential services.”
• Competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector: the ACCC will continue to prioritise competition, fair trading, consumer protection and pricing issues in the aviation sector.
• Competition, product safety, consumer and fair trading in the digital economy: the digital economy continues to be a matter of competition and consumer law focus both in Australia and globally.
• Environmental claims and sustainability with a focus on greenwashing: the ACCC will maintain its focus on environmental claims which it considers are both important for the competitive process and in delivering environmental benefits. 

Protecting and promoting competition through Australia's new merger regime.

Successful implementation of Australia's new merger control regime will be a key priority for the ACCC.  It is anticipated that the ACCC will commence consultations on guidelines relevant to the new regime by the end of March 2025. The ACCC signalled that it expects full compliance with the new mandatory regime and that when in effect, it will not hesitate to take enforcement actions against parties who fail to comply with notification requirements. 

The historic merger reforms are set to commence from 1 January 2026, with voluntary notification available from 1 July 2025. As previously reported (see further Fraud, Contracts & Mergers: Critical legal updates for 2025) the reforms will shift Australia from a voluntary, enforcement model to a mandatory, suspensory administrative regime. 

For more information contact Alistair Jaque or Rosemary Kanan.

Further reading: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission approvals

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