The Unintended Consequences of Joe Hockey

John Durie on the regulatory fall-out from the government’s capitulation to Joe Hockey’s ‘populist grandstanding’:

However you cut it, the ACCC will gain a massive increase in power from the new rules, powers to check every big financing deal, power to hold up financing if it is concerned, powers to issue section 155 discovery notices to check what is going on, and so it goes.

If you can accept the concept of the ACCC as the consumer’s best friend that works well, but we are talking about a massive increase in regulatory power. We are also talking about a massive increase in red tape to catch rare instances where competitors are supposedly secretly conspiring about price moves.

The maximum penalty for failure to comply with a section 155 notice is 12 months imprisonment.

posted on 07 March 2011 by skirchner in Economics, Rule of Law

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