Linksea Pty Ltd - s.87B undertaking

Linksea Pty Ltd is a manufacturer and importer of household furniture, including desks, bookcases and bunk beds.

In March 2009, Linksea was informed that its Snow bunk bed complied with the mandatory standard governing bunk beds supplied in Australia.  It then commenced supply of the Snow bunk to consumers.  As part of a product safety survey, the ACCC purchased one of these bunks and arranged for it to be tested against the standard.  When tests were completed in July 2009, the Snow bunk failed to comply, with parts of the bunk creating entrapment hazards, as well as a danger that a child using the top bunk would fall out.

The ACCC immediately contacted Linksea to inform them of the test results.  Linksea then conducted a recall of the Snow Bunk.  All 38 Snow Bunks which had been supplied to retailers and consumers were located.  Where requested, consumers received a refund.  In other cases, the beds were made safe through modification of the noncompliant elements.  Where the beds had not been supplied to consumers, they were destroyed.  No injuries occurred as a result of the noncompliance.

It appears that the noncompliance arose as a result of differences between the Snow Bunk’s design and the finished product, and that differences resulted from insufficient manufacturing quality control.  Linksea admits that, by supplying a bunk bed that did not comply with the relevant mandatory standard, it is likely to have contravened the section 65C of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

In response to concerns that Linksea may have breached the Trade Practices Act, it has offered the ACCC a court enforceable undertaking that it will implement a trade practices compliance program, which will include:

• training on the product safety provisions of the Act and mandatory product safety standards covering Linksea’s products;
• monitoring of Linksea’s products covered by a mandatory standard to check that they are properly labelled;
• monitoring of those products to check variation from their designs; and
• modification to the designs to take into account manufacturing variation to ensure the finished goods comply with the standard.