A five-year legal battle involving an importer of haircare products has come to an end, with the full court of the Federal Court of Australia ruling Dateline Imports breached Australian law.
The dispute was sparked by Dateline’s importation of the product Keratin Complex Smoothing Therapy Product for sale and its representations that the product did not contain formaldehyde.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched proceeding alleging Dateline’s representations were a breach of the Trade Practices Act.
At first instance, the court found these allegations were not established by the ACCC.
On appeal the Full Federal Court rejected six out of 10 of the ACCC’s appeal grounds and held while it was not misleading or deceptive for Dateline Imports to have represented that Keratin Complex did not contain formaldehyde, it did not have “reasonable grounds” for making the representation at the time that it did.
ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said it is pleasing to see further findings against Dateline Imports.
“The ACCC brought these proceedings because it was concerned that consumers and hair salon workers may have been exposed to formaldehyde by using Keratin Complex,” Court said.
“Businesses have an obligation to tell consumers the truth about their products, and need to have reasonable grounds to support the truth of those statements, particularly when making claims that a product is free from harmful chemicals.
“Consumers rely on these representations and do not want to unwittingly expose themselves to unsafe products.”
“Dateline welcomes the decision of the Full Court as it affirms the decision of the trial judge that the ACCC did not prove that formaldehyde was contained in, nor was it an ingredient in, Keratin Complex,” a spokesperson for Dateline said.*
Minecraft founder reveals the loneliness of a $US2.5 billion pay day
The founder of popular computer game Minecraft, Markus Persson, has opened up about his life post his Minecraft selloff in a series of revealing social media posts.
Persson sold Minecraft to Microsoft in 2014 for $US2.5 billion and has been living the high life ever since, with Business Insider reporting splurges which have included lashing out on a $US70 million mansion and wild parties.
Among the Twitter confessions are tweets about loneliness and how being surrounded by parties and famous people in Ibiza could do little to make him feel less isolated, while another refers to bad blood with former employees.
“When we sold the company, the biggest effort went into making sure the employees got taken care of, and they all hate me now,” one tweet reads.
Another seems to indicate he is regretting his decision to sell Minecraft.
“People who make sudden success are telling me this is normal and will pass,” he tweeted
Shares down on open
Aussie shares are trading lower this morning off the back of a poor showing from Wall Street.
Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said there was a “nervous start” to trading this morning.
“Energy stocks are likely to be a feature of today’s Australian session,” Spooner said.
“Two very strong days in the oil market after two months of relentlessly lower prices will have shareholders in energy stock hoping for some ongoing relief. If the US oil price is able to consolidate above $40 for a while, some of the worst fears about near-term energy company results will be relieved.”
The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was down 0.93%, falling 48.3 points to 5263.6 points at 11.44am AEST. On Saturday, the Dow Jones closed down 0.07%, falling 11.76 points to 16,643.01 points.
*SmartCompany initially reported that the Full Court had overturned the trial judge’s ruling when the Full Court only overturned part of the trial judge’s ruling. SmartCompany also incorrectly reported people using the product could have been exposed to formaldehyde when this was just an allegation made by the ACCC. This story was updated at 5pm on 31 August and again at 1pm on 1 September 2015 to reflect these changes. SmartCompany apologises for these errors to Dateline.
