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General Discussion >> General Board >> Woolworths has nothing to fear from ACCC
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Message started by hadrian_now on Mar 1st, 2013 at 8:35am

Title: Woolworths has nothing to fear from ACCC
Post by hadrian_now on Mar 1st, 2013 at 8:35am
AAP

Woolworths has nothing to fear from the consumer watchdog's inquiries into petrol dockets and its relationship with suppliers, chief executive Grant O'Brien says.

Mr O'Brien says the supermarket giant is fully co-operating with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's investigations into allegations it engaged in predatory behaviour.

"We've always had a good relationship with the ACCC and we've co-operated fully for all the year that I've been involved in the business and there will be no interruption or change to that," he said.

Mr O'Brien would not say whether Woolworths was conducting an internal inquiry into the allegations but said he believed his company was complying with the watchdog's rules.

"We've got a strong track record in running a fully compliant organisation and I don't see any change to that," he told reporters on Thursday.

Mr O'Brien also defended Woolworth's shopper dockets offering petrol discounts and said customers expected the company to help with their weekly budgets.
"We have a contract with out customers to provide an offer for them that helps them deal with the cost of living...and petrol is a lightning rod for that in any household economy," he said.

He added that Woolworths had offered shopper docket discounts for decades, so they were not new to the marketplace.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims told the Senate estimates committee in Canberra earlier this month that Woolworths and Coles may have misused their market power by imposing unfair penalties on suppliers, demanding additional payments and discriminating against them in favour of their own private labels.

He also said the ACCC was concerned about the supermarket giants' shopper dockets offering petrol discounts as they could not be matched by other fuel retailers.

Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder has said his company was conducting its own inquiries into Coles' conduct.

Coles is wholly owned by Wesfarmers.

Title: Re: Woolworths has nothing to fear from ACCC
Post by hadrian_now on Mar 1st, 2013 at 8:40am
Says it all really, nothing to fear. What it says is that the ACCC legislation cannot touch their monopolistic practices.

As for "helping customers with their weekly budgets", how Orwellian is that? His last gig must have been with the Ministry of Truth.
If they wanted to help customers with their budgets they could:
1. match Aldi's prices
or preferably,
2. sell off their non-supermarket businesses, thereby enabling a huge boost to competitive forces in the market which would see the prices of many diverse goods come down.

Title: Re: Woolworths has nothing to fear from ACCC
Post by newtown_grafitti on Mar 1st, 2013 at 10:16pm
The main complaint about Colesworths is that they screw down the prices that their suppliers offer, risking that in the longer term, Australian food growers, distributors and manufacturers will go out of business in favour of Chinese, Mexican, Zimbabwean or other very low cost sources.

Obviously, the way to stop the damage is for Colesworths to screw their suppliers even harder than they already do, to match Aldi prices.

Top idea.

Since far more Australians buy their food from Colesworths and the Metcash-supplied ecosystem, perhaps there is more to choice than cheaper price.

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