14th Aug 2017, 7:47 PM – Senate Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2017 - in Committee - Adverse costs orders

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon, which means it failed.

What do these amendments do?

Senator Xenophon [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2017-08-14.186.4:

This relates to adverse costs orders. As I indicated in my second reading contribution, no matter how good a piece of legislation is—and I think it is fair to say that this has good elements, but I believe it should have gone further. Notwithstanding that, we need an ability to have real access to justice for competition law in this country. As I indicated previously, there are many businesses who get advice from their lawyer saying there has been an abuse of market power—predatory pricing or whatever the breach may be—but the lawyer then advises their client, 'By the way, if you want to take this to court, you'll be spending a couple of million dollars and you might be up for an adverse cost order in the millions of dollars.' An adverse cost order could be $5 million, $10 million or $15 million, depending on the complexity of the case, because these can be complex matters.