Oct 14, 2026 · 26 min · 8 segments
In one of the most significant allegations of a breach in competition laws, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has filed civil proceedings in Victoria's Federal Court against…
Gina Cass-GottliebGuest
Libby PriceHostJade EganGabrielle Dodson
In one of the largest allegations of a breach in competition laws, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, ACCC, has filed civil proceedings in Victoria's federal court against Australia's largest egg suppliers, alleging illegal coordination of production and supply of eggs for more than five years.
The accused are Australia's biggest egg supplier, Sunny Queen, and 11 other egg producers and suppliers.
We're alleging that 12 largely East Coast in their production, egg producers and suppliers have coordinated in a range of decisions about their business operations, including the retailers each business could supply, what volumes they could produce and when to cull birds to manage periods of perceived oversupply and we allege that this conduct which was not independent conduct which we allege it is in breach of our competition laws took place over a number of years and reduced competition in the egg industry.
Now it's a very serious allegation as you say you allege it was done in a way that's likely to have substantially reduced competition for many years so that if it is proven to be true, would have been at the cost of the smaller egg producers?
If it's proven to be true, so firstly, looking at these 12, really the 12 are actually three groups of companies and they are each major egg producers and they supplied through and one of the companies we are supporting taking action against in relation to these allegations is Sunny Queen, which is the largest Australian egg supplier, supplying approximately a third of all eggs nationally in Australia.
Our investigations arise in a number of ways, from intelligence that we've been gathering, surveying various sectors.
information that we can get through our cartel immunity program so someone who's a member of a cartel or thinks they're engaged in problematic conduct can call us anonymously and also customer and industry complaints and tip-offs this is one point i'm not able to at this point talk about the specific source of the information However, those are the range of areas that we get the first tip-offs from or prompt to do a further investigation.
And then we use our full range of investigative powers, mandatory and voluntary.
It's significant because eggs is such an essential everyday grocery product for consumers across Australia.
It's also an important industry for our agricultural sector and it also brings together a number of our very important products focus and priority areas for our compliance and enforcement program.
And that includes essentials for consumers in a time of cost of living pressures.
And thirdly, we always prioritize investigations into serious anti-competitive conduct.
And this includes cartel conduct Exclusive arrangements, so binding parties to exclusively supply a product into Sunny Queen in this case, that is the supplier that would take each of the producer's eggs and then exclusively sell it on and prohibiting some of those suppliers from themselves directly supplying to our major retailers.
In one of the largest allegations of a breach in competition laws, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, ACCC, has filed civil proceedings in Victoria's federal court against Australia's largest egg suppliers, alleging illegal coordination of production and supply of eggs for more than five years.
The accused are Australia's biggest egg supplier, Sunny Queen, and 11 other egg producers and suppliers.
We're alleging that 12 largely East Coast in their production, egg producers and suppliers have coordinated in a range of decisions about their business operations, including the retailers each business could supply, what volumes they could produce and when to cull birds to manage periods of perceived oversupply and we allege that this conduct which was not independent conduct which we allege it is in breach of our competition laws took place over a number of years and reduced competition in the egg industry.
Now it's a very serious allegation as you say you allege it was done in a way that's likely to have substantially reduced competition for many years so that if it is proven to be true, would have been at the cost of the smaller egg producers?
If it's proven to be true, so firstly, looking at these 12, really the 12 are actually three groups of companies and they are each major egg producers and they supplied through and one of the companies we are supporting taking action against in relation to these allegations is Sunny Queen, which is the largest Australian egg supplier, supplying approximately a third of all eggs nationally in Australia.
Our investigations arise in a number of ways, from intelligence that we've been gathering, surveying various sectors.
information that we can get through our cartel immunity program so someone who's a member of a cartel or thinks they're engaged in problematic conduct can call us anonymously and also customer and industry complaints and tip-offs this is one point i'm not able to at this point talk about the specific source of the information However, those are the range of areas that we get the first tip-offs from or prompt to do a further investigation.
And then we use our full range of investigative powers, mandatory and voluntary.
It's significant because eggs is such an essential everyday grocery product for consumers across Australia.
It's also an important industry for our agricultural sector and it also brings together a number of our very important products focus and priority areas for our compliance and enforcement program.
And that includes essentials for consumers in a time of cost of living pressures.
And thirdly, we always prioritize investigations into serious anti-competitive conduct.
And this includes cartel conduct Exclusive arrangements, so binding parties to exclusively supply a product into Sunny Queen in this case, that is the supplier that would take each of the producer's eggs and then exclusively sell it on and prohibiting some of those suppliers from themselves directly supplying to our major retailers.
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