On Thursday 19 February 2026, Australian Competition and Consumer (ACCC) Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb announced the ACCC’s 2026-2027 compliance and enforcement priorities in her fourth annual address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).
The ACCC’s consultation identified concerns about:
high and rising costs of goods and services
conduct undermining trust in the digital economy
restrictions imposed by business that limit other businesses’ ability to compete.
Reflecting these concerns, the ACCC has renewed almost all of its 2025-2026 compliance and enforcement priorities (see link for our report on the ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities). However, it has reformulated its approach to digital markets, including conduct described as “manipulative and false practices”, recognising the central role and growing reliance on digital services in the Australian economy.
The ACCC will continue to focus on competition and consumer protection issues in the supermarket and retail sectors (including in relation to “accurate pricing information”), aviation, essential services (including telecommunications, electricity and gas) and the digital economy.
Chair Cass-Gottlieb placed particular emphasis on “compliance”, highlighting the ACCC’s focus on the accountability of senior executives to ensure their organisations maintain effective compliance structures.
In conversation with Gilbert + Tobin Competition, Consumer and Market Regulation partner, Louise Klamka, Chair Cass-Gottlieb also shared early observations on Australia’s new merger regime.
We cover all this and more below.
ACCC 2026-27 compliance and enforcement priorities
The ACCC’s compliance and enforcement priorities for 2026-27 are:
Competition issues in the supermarket and retail sectors, focusing on firms with market power and conduct that impacts small business.
Consumer and fair trading concerns in the supermarket and retail sectors, including misleading pricing practices.
Promoting competition in essential services, particularly telecommunications, electricity and gas.
Misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services, with a focus on energy and telecommunications.
Competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector.
Manipulative and false practices, and unsafe consumer goods in digital markets.
Promoting competition in digital markets.
Consumer and fair-trading concerns in relation to environmental claims and sustainability, particularly greenwashing.
Unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts, especially harmful cancellation terms such as automatic renewals and early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses.
Improving industry compliance with consumer guarantees, with a focus on motor vehicles.
Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery, infant sleep and toppling furniture mandatory standards.
The ACCC’s enduring priorities
The ACCC will continue to target conduct it considers “detrimental to consumer welfare and the competitive process”. Its enduring priorities include:
cartel conduct
anti-competitive conduct and exclusionary behaviour
product safety
consumers experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage
conduct impacting First Nations Australians
small business and agriculture
scams.
Supermarkets and retail remain under scrutiny
The ACCC will continue to focus on these sectors given their impact on household budgets and the sustained cost-of-living pressures affecting the Australian economy more broadly.
The ACCC has renewed its focus on:
firms with market power
restrictions limiting price competition
misleading pricing practices that undermine consumer trust.
This priority sits alongside the current proceedings in the Federal Court against the major supermarkets alleging misleading discount pricing claims, civil cartel proceedings against four fresh food suppliers, and infringement notices issued after a sweep of retailers’ Black Friday and Boxing Day sales advertising.
Sharpened focus on digital and data-enabled markets
Digital and data-enabled markets as a key priority for 2026-2027.
Chair Cass-Gottlieb emphasised the need for better digital marketplace regulation to protect Australians from “manipulative online practices”, including subscription traps and other dark patterns that manipulate consumer behaviour and unfairly impact consumer choice. She also noted the “rise in unsafe consumer goods available right across our economy facilitated by the increasing scale and reach of digital markets”. The ACCC hopes its efforts over 2026-2027 will help rebuild consumer trust in these online spaces.
The ACCC will continue to advocate for digital platform regulation, reiterating the need for specific codes of conduct “targeted to the few platforms and critical intermediary services that exhibit market power and impede competition and diversified innovation.”
Essential services: pricing transparency in focus
Last year’s priority on promoting competition in essential services with a focus on telecommunications, electricity and gas has remained in this year’s list, with an emphasis on pricing transparency. Chair Cass-Gottlieb stated that the fundamental telecommunications, electricity and gas sectors are often concentrated and involve opaque pricing structures that impair comparison and choice for consumers and small businesses.
Aviation sector scrutiny continues
The aviation sector remains “firmly in focus” for the ACCC, as it was in the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 enforcement priorities. The ACCC will prioritise competition and consumer issues through market monitoring, advocacy and enforcement action where appropriate.
Continued focus on environmental and sustainability claims
Having been a priority every year since 2022-23, the ACCC will continue focusing on environmental claims which are expected to increase as Australia continues towards net zero. Greenwashing continues to attract enforcement action. Chair Cass-Gotlieb referred to the $8.25 million penalty imposed on Clorox Australia in relation to representations that certain GLAD products were made from “ocean plastic”.
Consumer product safety and scams
The ACCC also continues last year’s priority on consumer product safety issues, particularly in relation to compliance with mandatory standards relating button battery, infant sleep, and toppling furniture. This follows infringement notices and enforceable undertakings involving the Wiggles and Hungry Jacks for allegedly failing to include the mandatory button battery safety warnings.
The ACCC also reaffirmed its focus on implementing Australia’s new Scams Prevention Framework, introduced in 2025. The framework implements a concerted effort to protect Australian consumers from scams, involving a “system-wide” approach to consumer protection by requiring key industries to take proactive steps to prevent, detect, disrupt, respond to and report scams. More details about what the Framework means for businesses can be found in our article here.
Unfair contract terms and consumer guarantees
The ACCC is again prioritising enforcement related to unfair contract terms and industry compliance with consumer guarantees in 2026-27, as part of its overall focus on consumer trust. For unfair contract terms, the ACCC’s focus is the same as last year: harmful cancellation terms, including those associated with automatic renewals, early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses. For compliance with consumer guarantees, the ACCC will now be shifting its focus to motor vehicles (after focusing on consumer electronics last year). Chair Cass-Gottlieb indicated that the ACCC will explore different approaches to achieve compliance with the consumer guarantees, including working collaboratively with industry to deliver changes for the benefit of consumers.
Cartel and other collusive behaviour, exclusionary conduct, anti-competitive agreements and misuse of market power
The ACCC’s enduring priorities include cartel conduct, anti-competitive agreements and misuse of market power, which were described as conduct “striking at the competitive process itself”. Chair Cass-Gotlieb noted four cartel cases are currently before the courts, along with proceedings against Mastercard, which are due to go to trial next month.
Unsafe products and scams
The ACCC will continue targeting unsafe products and practices that disproportionately harm vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals. This follows significant compliance efforts in 2025-2026, including Optus’ $100 million penalty for unconscionable conduct in relation to the sale of phones and contracts to vulnerable customers, including many First Nations Australians, who could not afford or use them. While Optus was also required to engage in customer remediation, the case demonstrates that the ACCC won’t trade off high penalties for customer remediation alone. Chair Cass-Gottlieb stated the ACCC will continue to seek high penalties where conduct causes serious harm, including a focus on senior executives, particularly where a business has poor compliance culture.
Fair dealing and small business
The ACCC will also continue to prioritise conduct that undermines fair dealing for small businesses, noting this threat remains acute in agriculture sector and highlighting the ACCC’s enforcement action against WA Wholesale Galati Group for breaches of Horticulture Code.
Australia’s new merger regime
The address was also an opportunity for Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb to provide some remarks about Australia’s new merger regime which came force on a mandatory basis on 1 January 2026.
Chair Cass-Gottlieb stated the current regime was “working well” and was “right sized and proportionate”. She noted that:
the ACCC had received 31 merger notifications since 1 July 2025 (when the voluntary notification period commenced), including two which have moved to Phase 2 for an in-depth review;
the ACCC has met its target of deciding around 80% of notifications and waiver applications within 20 business days; and
in relation to waivers, the three notification waiver applications in relation to which the ACCC determined to not grant a waiver, the ACCC was unable to reach a concluded view based on the information before it, indicating that it will reject waivers if it requires more material to understand the competitive dynamics associated with a given transaction.
We cover what you need to know about the new mandatory and suspensory regime here.
Unfair trading practices reform
Noted as complementary to the ACCC’s priorities relating to consumer trust and confidence, Chair Cass-Gottlieb highlighted the proposed reforms announced earlier this month to introduce a general prohibition on ‘unfair trading practices’ that impact consumers. This will target conduct that unreasonably manipulates consumers or distorts their decision-making and causes detriment. Chair Cass-Gottlieb emphasised the ACCC’s support for the introduction of a general prohibition, which she said “would operate as a safety net, addressing conduct that causes real harm to consumers and small businesses, including vulnerable groups, but is not adequately captured by current provisions”.
See our recent article for more detail on the draft legislation and its implications.
Chair Cass-Gottlieb’s address to CEDA and the ACCC’s 2026-2027 compliance and enforcement policy and priorities are available on the ACCC website.