Over the past few years, we have been refining our approach to enforcing consumer and competition legislation. We use a wide range of tools, including advocacy and education, to achieve good public understanding of the law and compliance by businesses.
We are being increasingly transparent about our enforcement decisions: how we make them; what we think about; and the kinds of considerations that lead us to a particular outcome.
“The Enforcement Response Guidelines are an important milestone for us. We have already provided guidance on our approach to enforcement in our Enforcement Criteria and our Model Litigant Policy. But these new guidelines add the missing piece to this suite of resources. They provide transparency about how we draw the threads together, from the start of an investigation to the end, when we deliver an enforcement outcome. We hope the guidelines will provide the public with a much better idea of our methods and considerations,” said Commerce Commission Chair, Dr Mark Berry.
“For now, the guidelines only cover consumer law enforcement and competition enforcement under Parts 2 and 3 of the Commerce Act. They don’t cover enforcement that arises from our regulatory work, but in future we may publish guidance for those areas also,” said Dr Berry.
As always, our approach to enforcement focuses on areas where we can have the biggest impact through the most efficient use of taxpayer resources. We take action not only to address present-day harm to competition and consumers, but also to deter future breaches of the law. We actively encourage the early resolution of matters out of court where we can.
“We have always understood that litigation serves a very important public function, but it can be unnecessary in some cases. Sometimes, we are able to agree a change in behaviour by a business or person where a Court would not be able to do so. And often such outcomes can be agreed more promptly. We have worked out the best balance of enforcement activities in order to provide good outcomes for New Zealanders in competitive markets. These new guidelines reflect our views on that balance, and I hope that the public benefits through reading it,” said Dr Berry.
The guidelines detail the enforcement responses available to us from low-level to high-level, and what the public can expect from us when we make decisions about the outcome of an investigation. The guidelines emphasise that public education and prevention of harm are primary goals for us.
Read the Enforcement Response Guidelines.
