The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has urged businesses to remove unfair contract terms in standard form contracts before reforms to the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) come into effect on 9 November 2023. Significantly the reforms prohibit the use of unfair contract terms in standard form contracts and impose substantial penalties for contraventions of the prohibition. Legal update, ACCC urges businesses to remove unfair contract terms ahead of 9 November 2023 changes provides a brief recap of the reforms and an overview of Practical Law resources to help navigate compliance.

Practical Law has also published Checklist, Key findings: ACCC investigation and prosecution of unfair contract terms. This new checklist provides a summary of key findings from the ACCC investigation and prosecution of unfair contract terms pursuant to the protections contained in the ACL. It identifies terms flagged by ACCC investigations as likely to be unfair and terms determined by the courts as unfair (including the key reasons for such determinations). It is designed to assist legal practitioners to understand the application of the unfair contract terms regime in different contexts and to identify when terms in standard form contracts may constitute unfair terms.

This new checklist complements and is intended to be read in conjunction with Checklist, Application of the unfair contract terms regime and assessing whether a term is unfair.