Originally Posted by
CaptCloudbuster
stet
$250 million is actually the correct number. There was a misunderstanding after a question by PK (Patricia Karvelas):
The consumer watchdog wants to see Qantas hit with hundreds of millions of dollars of penalties if its
legal action alleging the airline was selling tickets already cancelled flights succeeds.
Gina Cass-Gottlieb, chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), said on Friday she wanted the Qantas case to deliver a new record penalty for consumer law breaches to scare other companies that had stopped fearing such fines.
Speaking on ABC Radio National, Cass-Gottlieb noted the current record penalty for a breach of Australia’s consumer law was $125m –
issued to Volkswagen in 2019 for deceiving customers over diesel emissions – and said she was hopeful that, if found in breach of the law, Qantas should face a fine significantly higher.
Host Patricia Karvelas asked Cass-Gottlieb: “Are you talking over $300 million?”
Cass-Gottlieb replied: “We would want to get to more than twice that figure.”
The ACCC later clarified that Cass-Gottlieb had meant more than $250m, which is twice the current record penalty.
The watchdog alleges Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct in advertising and selling tickets for
more than 8,000 flights between May and July 2022 that the airline had already cancelled in its system.
“So this will be an important case for us in that regard.”
Cass-Gottlieb said that as well as being significant for the ACCC, it was “also a process for the court to feel comfortable to move to higher levels in respect of breaches of the consumer law”.
“We consider it’s important enough that we need to set really high standards of performance in engaging with every ordinary Australian consumer.”