Australia’s new unfair trading laws are a major step forward, but gaps covering financial services, personalised pricing and exploitative product design could leave consumers exposed to serious harm.

Australia has almost caught up to Europe on unfair trading laws with the recent passage of the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act. From next July, tricking consumers through confusing interfaces, locking them into inescapable subscriptions, or exploiting cognitive biases to empty their wallets will break the law.

It should not have taken this long, and the job isn’t finished. That unfair commercial conduct ought to be illegal is surely an obvious proposition. Yet Australia has spent 50 years dithering. Such prohibitions have been raised repeatedly, from the 1970s Trade Practices Act debates through to the 2010 Australian Consumer Law, only to be diluted under industry lobbying or shelved. Business groups claim a general unfairness prohibition is too vague and costly. Each time, the government subordinated consumer protection to industry objections, producing narrower laws than proposed. Though 50 years overdue, this year’s Act marks genuine progress, yet structural gaps remain.

The Act amends the Australian Consumer Law through a two-part test. Conduct is banned if it manipulates consumers or distorts decision-making and causes, or is likely to cause, financial or psychological detriment. Actual harm need not be proved; likely harm suffices.

The explanatory memorandum targets countdown timers on deals that never expire, subscription cancellations engineered to exhaust consumers, charges sneaked in at checkout, and interfaces designed so the business-favourable option is impossible to miss. The OECD calls these ‘dark commercial patterns’. They are engineered, not accidental.

Australia is not the first to act. The........

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