Carrington Clarke

So the 12 weeks is about how long the internal rules were at Coles that an item could be at a certain price before you can

say that it has been discounted when it goes to a lower price.

These are internal guardrails that the judge says the Coles did not adhere to.

But what it seems the chair of the ACCC is saying is that this is relevant to this case, but not necessarily to other companies.

So I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays through.

And again, it's before midday here when we're recording.

We'll wait to see how this is interpreted more broadly, but it does appear that perhaps

It's not that this 12 weeks is going to become a rule for every other company, but I guess

What is relevant is that companies at least have to adhere to their own guardrails, their own internal rules about what is a genuine discount.

But it is going to be interesting to see how other companies react.

And one of the things that we heard from the chair is that this shouldn't be the end of discounting.

She wants to see people be able to receive discounts from companies.

She wants companies discounting.

They want more competition within the industry.

But what they don't want are fake discounts.

Yes, I think usually people talk about Coles and Woolworths controlling about two-thirds of the total spend.

I mean, what is interesting, though, is that basically Coles and Woolworths in their separate cases are claiming there is fierce competition.

And part of the reason that we saw this particular practice where they had an original price, it gets bumped up to a new price and then discounted and discounted even quicker is

than the guardrails will allow is because they're looking at what the other guy is doing and saying, well, they seem to be doing this.

So we're going to do a similar thing because we can't let them steal market share from us.