Do Businesses Take Compliance Seriously?

Abstract

For the last fifteen years the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has actively encouraged, and sometimes forced, Australian businesses to implement internal competition and consumer protection compliance programs in order to improve compliance amongst a wider range of businesses than can be reached by enforcement action alone. Have Australian businesses implemented the type of internal management systems and controls that the ACCC, industry best practice and research evidence see as desirable for trade practices compliance? This paper presents data from a survey of 999 of the largest Australian businesses on the extent to which they have implemented trade practices compliance systems. These data show that on the whole Australian business implementation of trade practices compliance systems is partial, symbolic and half-hearted. But ACCC enforcement action does improve compliance system implementation.

Keywords: compliance, ACCC, Australia, business

JEL Classification: K22