1 Australia: ACCC cracks down on unfair B2B contract terms The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has commenced investigations across a number of industries regarding business-to-business (B2B) unfair contract terms. The investigations follow the ACCC's publication of a report in November 2016 examining 46 standard form contracts across seven industries, including advertising and telecommunications (Report). The Report identified a number of potentially unfair terms in the contracts examined, including terms that allow the contract provider: an unreasonable ability to cancel an agreement; unreasonable powers to protect itself against loss or damage through broad indemnities or excessive limitations of liability; the ability to unilaterally change the terms of the contract; and the ability to unreasonably limit the other party from exiting the contract. The ACCC has indicated that enforcement of the new B2B unfair contract terms laws is a priority for 2017. If they haven't done so already, businesses should review their standard form contracts and identify any terms that are at risk of being characterised as unfair. The ACCC media release is available here. The Report is available here. For more information, please contact Anne-Marie Allgrove, Toby Patten, Matthew Dempsey, Grace Loukides or Stephanie Szkilnik
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