The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has filed an Amended Statement of Claim and Amended Application in the Federal Court of Australia in its legal proceedings against StoresOnline International Inc and StoresOnline Inc (collectively StoresOnline).
On Friday 30 November 2007, the ACCC amended the claims it has made against StoresOnline to include two new allegations of false or misleading conduct.
The ACCC commenced legal proceedings against StoresOnline on 5 October 2007 alleging that StoresOnline contravened undertakings it had provided to the ACCC pursuant to section 87B of the Act.*
The ACCC has now alleged that since October 2006, StoresOnline made false or misleading representations to Australian customers about the price of its e-commerce software packages.
The ACCC has alleged that StoresOnline promoted and offered for sale e-commerce packages at a price known as the "Workshop Only Offer Price" which was represented as being a discounted price in comparison to two other prices at which the package is purported to be sold, being the "Full Price" and the "90 Day Offer Price", and that this difference in price represented the level of savings a purchaser would secure. The ACCC has alleged that the StoresOnline packages have never previously been sold or offered for sale at the Full Price or the 90 Day Offer Price in Australia, and thus the level of saving representation was false.
The ACCC claims that such conduct contravenes sections 52 and 53(e) of the Trade Practices Act 1974.
The second new allegation is that StoresOnline made false or misleading testimonial representations in a workshop held in Australia on 26 March 2007. The ACCC alleges that StoresOnline claimed at that Workshop that Mr Richard Zikmundovsky of the Gold Coast in Australia operated his businesses in a particular way when this was not the case. This conduct is alleged to breach section 52 of the Act.
Justice Tamberlin has set a timetable for the future conduct of the litigation.