The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission today announced further agreements with major supermarket operators to phase out restrictive provisions in supermarket leases.
The ACCC has reached agreement with ALDI Foods, Franklins, SPAR Australia, Australian United Retailers Limited (trading as Foodworks) and Metcash Limited that they will not enter into any new leasing agreement which includes restrictive provisions and in the case of existing supermarket leases, will not enforce any restrictive provisions beyond five years after the commencement of trading. This comes in addition to the agreements reached by the ACCC with both Coles and Woolworths last year to end restrictive leasing practices.
“These further agreements with the next tier of supermarket operators mean that many more shopping centres will no longer be hamstrung by restrictive provisions in leases that prevent or hinder the entry of competing supermarkets,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Graeme Samuel said.
This will be great news to retailers who have previously been unable to trade in competition to these shopping centre anchors. These agreements between retailers and the ACCC are in the form of court enforceable undertakings that allow the ACCC to take supermarkets to court for operating outside the terms of today’s agreement.
