Section 46 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 does not compel a manufacturer or wholesaler to supply goods of services to all who wish to acquire them. The section prohibits a refusal of supply which constitutes a use by a corporation of its substantial degree of market power for a proscribed anticompetitive purpose. In this recent case, a former wholesale distributor of street directories was successful in establishing each of the elements requires under Section 46. The publisher and wholesaler of the directory, in refusing to continue to supply the distributor, was held to have taken advantage of its substantial degree of market power for the purpose of preventing the distributor from engaging in competitive conduct with existing distributors.

Gaire Blunt and Jenny Zaverdinos
Allen Allen & Hemsley
Sydney