Australia: ‘Price-fixing’ case vs oil retailers dropped
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the country’s consumer watchdog, has dropped its Federal Court case against BP, Caltex, Woolworths, 7-Eleven after Informed Sources agreed to freely share information with consumers, according to Yahoo News.
Informed Sources, a website and app that provides real-time information to consumers about petrol prices, had been previously accused by the ACCC for being used by gas stations to control prices, which eventually breaches consumer and competition regulations.
Informed Sources assured that the data supplied to fuel retailers will be at the same time shared with the consumers for free.
Caltex, which welcomes this development, said in a press release that it “uses the (Informed Sources) to gather information on petrol prices in order to remain price competitive for customers. This information is already publicly available on petrol price boards, and the service simply makes it more cost-effective for fuel retailers to collect this data.”
ACCC chairman Rod Simms said greater competition will take place as consumers could access these information.
"The ACCC believes that greater transparency of petrol prices and the behaviour of petrol retailers across Australia will reduce the potential for any adverse effect of the Informed Sources service on competition," explained Simms.
