The court dispute related to two Telstra fixed line home phone products – one a wholesale line rental product and the other a retail home phone product.
The products were originally offered in mid-2005, but the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued a competition notice on the products in April 2006.
Telstra complains that just four days after the ACCC issued the notice, “Optus commenced its own legal proceedings against Telstra on the back of the competition notice.”
Justice Annabelle Bennett ruled that the ACCC had acted illegally in issuing the competition notice, because it denied Telstra the procedural fairness. The ruling related to discrepancies between the competition notice and the consultation notice issued prior to it.
Telstra, which has a relationship with the ACCC best described as poisonous, is using the ruling to again call for the ACCC to have its powers curbed.
Telstra's Group General Counsel Will Irving said: "As we said in April, the ACCC's powers should be overhauled given the finding of the Court that the ACCC had not treated Telstra fairly.
“The ACCC's competition notice exposed Telstra to potential fines of up to $3 million a day, as well as third-party litigation of precisely the type we saw from Optus,” Mr Irving said.
“Telstra has long argued that Part XIB of the Trade Practices Act gives the ACCC too much selective power that is clearly susceptible to gaming by competitors.”
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