The Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) goal is to protect the rights of consumers and businesses and achieve a fair and safe marketplace. We recognise most businesses want to comply with the law.
When we receive a complaint or suspect a breach of the law, we follow our policies and procedures to investigate, analyse and address the situation.
We follow an escalation model. This means our response to ensuring compliance increases as a trader's attitude to complying with the law decreases.
Our activities and powers to promote compliance and enforce the law include:
Enforcement options and remedies we can impose include:
When deciding which enforcement action to take we'll always:
Download our Compliance and Enforcement Policy for more information.
We can take the following enforcement actions without a court order.
We'll limit our actions to official warnings if a business:
We can issue an infringement notice or a civil penalty fine for breaches that:
An enforceable undertaking is an agreement we make with a business that they'll change or stop doing certain activities that may breach a law.
Generally, we'll use an enforceable undertaking instead of court action if this is the first time we've had to enforce compliance for this conduct and the business is unlikely to reoffend.
Enforceable undertakings can require the business to:
If the business doesn't honour the enforceable undertaking, we can seek orders from the court for the business to stop or start certain activities, pay compensation, a fine or a security bond.
If it's in the public's interest we may release a media statement about an enforceable undertaking.
View our enforceable undertakings register.
A public warning naming a business is a serious action because it can affect the business's reputation and ability to operate.
We take this action only in limited situations, including when we have:
Find a list of businesses and traders to avoid.
We can prosecute a business in court or start disciplinary proceedings in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) against a business in the industries we regulate.
The court or tribunal will decide whether to issue an order or fine based on the strength of our complaint or application of the evidence.
We can prosecute or start tribunal action if:
Depending on the industry, QCAT can make orders, including disqualifying the person from holding a licence for as long as the tribunal considers appropriate.
Breaches of our laws generally lead to court prosecution rather than tribunal action.
A court can make the following types of orders.
A court injunction requires a business to stop engaging in certain conduct.
We'll apply for an injunction if the conduct is:
These types of orders require the business to carry out actions to remedy their conduct against customers or anyone who has been negatively impacted, including:
The court can also void, vary or refuse to enforce the terms of a contract.
An adverse publicity order requires a business to:
The court will set out the content and audience of the disclosure.
A court can order an individual or business to pay a civil or criminal fine as a punishment or to prevent reoffending.
If the business doesn't pay a civil fine, their assets may be taken and sold (they may have to start bankruptcy proceedings).
Unpaid criminal fines can lead to imprisonment.
A court can disqualify a person from managing a corporation for as long as they consider appropriate.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) keeps a register of disqualified people.
View the ASIC banned and disqualified register.
