ACCC enforcement priorities for the 2026-27 financial year

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has announced its updated enforcement and compliance priorities for the 2026–27 financial year.

These annual priorities signal the ACCC's key areas of focus for the year ahead and provide important insight into likely upcoming ACCC enforcement action. For businesses, they offer a clear indication of the conduct and sectors most likely to attract regulatory scrutiny in the coming financial year.

Key drivers of the ACCC's enforcement priorities are competition and consumer trust, which the ACCC identifies as two conditions for efficient markets. In remarks announcing the priorities, the Chair of the ACCC, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, stated: "consumer protection supports trust and participation in markets; competition supports outcomes that consumers can have confidence in. Together, they are vital to the proper functioning of markets and to the strength of the economy as a whole."

The 2026-27 enforcement priorities are largely a re-statement and realignment of the previous year's priorities. This reflects the ACCC's view that largely ongoing issues are continuing to affect the Australian economy - including cost-of-living pressures, competition and consumer issues in the digital economy and restrictions limiting the ability of businesses to compete.

Enduring priorities

The ACCC maintains several enduring enforcement priorities, reflecting conduct it considers highly likely to be harmful to consumers and the competitive process. The enduring priorities are cartel conduct, anti-competitive conduct, product safety, consumers experiencing vulnerability or disadvantage, conduct impacting First Nations Australians, small business and agriculture, and scams.

Ongoing priorities

The ACCC has maintained a number of priorities from the previous financial year. This reflects ongoing areas of enforcement focus for the ACCC, where emerging and complex issues continue to potentially arise.

The ACCC will continue to prioritise enforcement in relation to:

• Competition and consumer issues in the supermarket and retail sectors, focusing on firms with market power and conduct that impacts small business as well as misleading pricing practices.
• Promoting competition in essential services, with a focus on telecommunications, electricity, and gas.
• Misleading pricing and claims in relation to essential services, with a focus on energy and telecommunications.
• Competition and consumer issues in the aviation sector.
• Consumer and fair-trading concerns in relation to environmental claims and sustainability, with a focus on greenwashing.
• Unfair contract terms in consumer and small business contracts, with a focus on harmful cancellation terms, including those associated with automatic renewals, early termination fee clauses and non-cancellation clauses.
• Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery, infant sleep and toppling furniture mandatory standards.

New and revised priorities

The ACCC has revised and refocused several of its priorities for 2026/27. In particular, it has adjusted its focus on digital markets, with its enforcement priorities being:

• Promoting competition in digital markets.
• Manipulative and false practices in digital markets: the ACCC has stated that this priority is focused on subscription traps and other dark patterns that manipulate consumer behaviour and unfairly impact consumer choice. This priority aligns with the ACCC's broader advocacy in support for the proposed unfair trading prohibitions (see our discussion of these proposed laws here).
• The supply of unsafe consumer goods in the digital economy: this priority is targeted towards unsafe consumer goods available right across our economy facilitated by the increasing scale and reach of digital markets.

The ACCC has also re-cast its priorities in respect of compliance with consumer guarantees to focus on motor vehicles.