COMMERCE ACT REPORT Commission ‘should have more power’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34133, 21 April 1976, Page 2

COMMERCE ACT REPORT Commission ‘should have more power’

(New Zealand Press Association) ’ WELLINGTON. April 20. The working party set up to review the Commerce Act, 1975, has recommended that the powers of the Commerce Commission be extended, and that it become the decision-making authority in respect of monopolies, mergers, and take-overs.

The report was released today by the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr AdamsSchneider) after a speech to the Tawa Rotary Club. The committee of five, representing wholesalers, manufacturers, the Chambers of Commerce, consumers, and retailers was set up on February 11, and was asked to report back to the Minister by March 31. Its recommendations will be considered when the act is reviewed by the Government. In its recommendations the working party said it took the objects of the Act as being to protect the interests of consumers and to assist the orderly development of industry and commerce. It said that to achieve those objects the act should provide effective machinery to ensure that competition was effective; promote improved productivity and efficiency in industry and commerce; and prevent or remove any "commercial mischiefs” which could be

incompatible with the act’s objects. The party also said it considered it of fundamental importance that interference in commercial activity be minimal, and that administrative control and policy of the act should rest mainly with a commission divorced from the day-to-day control of the Minister. It called for a right of appeal on points of law and fact throughout the act, except decisions made by the Minister or by the commission on unreasonably high prices. It agreed that all trade practices, monopoly, and price legislation should be consolidated in one commerce act and said it saw a possibility that such an act could contain consumer legislation at present in ether acts. It recommended increasing the powers and obligations of the commission relative to those of the Minister of Trade and Industry, the Secretary of Trade and Industry, and the Examiner of Trade Practices. "It is important that the act is not viewed primarily as a regulatory mechanism but rather as a legislative framework for the development of industry and commerce in a way compatible with the inetrests of consumers,” said the report. "The major vehicle for achieving these objectives is

.an independent commerce commission acting in a judicial fashion according to the members’ own determination of the relative merits of the criteria set out in the act. We consider that the Government should lay down jthe broad framework to the j commission and entrust it to Ido its task as men and [women of vision.” i The working party empha- [ sised that the commission should be free to engage the staff it needed to carry out its enlarged functions under the act. The commission’s role would be to strike the balance between the consumers’ interests and that of fostering the development of industry and commerce. The party therefore recommended adding a section providing governing objectives to the Act. It called for the term, "profiteering,” to be deleted from the act and a new term, “unresonably high prices,” to be substituted. Unreasonably high pricing would be a prohibited practice. and the commission, on receipt of a report from the Examiner of Trade Practices, would have the power to es-i tablish whether unreasonably high pricing or profit margins existed. It would then be able to direct the examiner whether to take! any court action. No right of I appeal would exist from the commission’s decision.