Renewed focus on dual-price advertising and false or misleading representations

The Jewellery Group Pty Ltd (Zamel's) v Australian Competition & Consumer Commission [2013] FCAFC 144

The Federal Court's decision against Zamel's reinforces that business must take caution when utilising a dual-price advertising strategy, or risk being subject to significant penalties.

In particular, businesses must be careful to accurately represent to consumers the savings that are being offered, whether the representation is by way of discounts off a "was" price, or by way of "savings" during the promotional period.

To the extent that businesses seek to refer to a "was" price, they must ensure that such a price was actually offered by the business, and was a price that the "ordinary" or "reasonable" consumer would have paid, for the product in the immediately preceding period.