The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has brought its actions in the Federal Court against a franchisor alleging unconscionable conduct and breach of the Franchising Code of Conduct under the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth). Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with the Franchising Code...

The recent Federal Court decision of Roxborough v Rothmans of Pall Mall Australia Ltd involved applications by tobacco retailers for recovery of amounts paid to a tobacco wholesaler in respect of tobacco purchases. The applications arose as a result of the High Court's decision in Ha v State of...

In this chapter, we explain and evaluate the AUSFTA primarily from an Australian perspective, given that most countries will be in a more or less analogous position to Australia when negotiating an FTA with the US. AUSFTA provides an illustration of the outcomes that countries with relatively...

The relationship between the bilateral investment treaty (‘BIT') between Australia and China (1988) and the preferential trade agreement between those countries (‘ChAFTA') (2015) provides an interesting case study of the co-existence of successive treaties under public international law....

This chapter examines the prominent role that Australia has played in the multilateral trading system, with a specific focus on the WTO and Australia's preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Australia has been actively involved in the WTO, through GATT and WTO negotiations, WTO committee work,...

In this paper, we first identify in Part II the benefits of a common telecommunications market in Australia and New Zealand, before explaining in Part III the extent to which these two countries are already subject to obligations to liberalise telecommunications and harmonise associated...

Chapters relating to regulatory coherence or cooperation are becoming significant features in new preferential trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While the existing literature has considered in detail the potential for harmonisation of standards or institutional...