The ACCC has been awarded the 2019 Government Agency of the Year at the Global Competition Review (GCR) 9th Annual Awards Ceremony hosted in Washington DC tonight (26 March).
“We are honoured that our work has been acknowledged on the global stage, in what has been a year of incredibly hard work for the Commission,” said ACCC Chair Rod Sims, who is in Washington this week to speak at the American Bar Association Spring Conference and Federal Trade Commission Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century.
“I’m very proud of our teams right across the ACCC for the passion, commitment and innovation they bring to our work. I’m also grateful for the expert and strategic thinking of my fellow Commissioners and the robust decision making processes we have that enable us to take risks and be confident in our decision making.”
The GCR highlighted the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry, its investigation into Google’s restriction on mobile app developer Unlockd, and the complex Nine-Fairfax merger decision. In 2018, the ACCC also took its first gun-jumping case against Cryosite, a stem cell storage company, and reached another milestone in its decade-long price-fixing case against airlines with Air New Zealand being the 14th airline to be fined in those proceedings.
GCR also noted ACCC Chair Rod Sims’ reappointment in 2018 for a further three-year term, saying “he is credited with stewarding the authority’s criminal cartel enforcement work, introduced the year before he started, and the strengthening of Australia’s abuse of dominance law.”
Other nominees in the category included Canada’s Competition Bureau, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office’s Antitrust Division and Portugal’s Competition Authority.
