High Court rules against Seven Network

The High Court has ruled Today Tonight in breach of trade practices laws by entering into a deal for exclusive get-rich-quick stories.

The ruling follows a long-running case over a story on an investment mentoring program called Wildly Wealthy Women (WWW).

TT ran two exclusives in October 2003 and January 2004 organised by a marketer who had made arrangements with WWW to receive a commission for every woman who signed up to the investment program.

The stories stated that participants in the WWW program would become millionaires through investing in property, even if they had no money to start with.

But the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission claimed TT had no reasonable grounds to make such assertions.

In October 2007 a Federal Court judge agreed with the ACCC and ruled the story misleading.

While Seven did not dispute that the programs contained untrue claims about the wealth and assets of the two women who were offering the training, it denied it was deceptive, stating it had reported the claims of the two women.

By June 2008, an appeal by Seven was won in the Federal Court.

It found the media exemption in the Trade Practices Act – sometimes known as the “media safe-harbour” protection – did apply to the Seven Network’s broadcast.

Today the High Court today found the exemption did not apply to situations in which a media outlet publishes matter in relation to “goods or services where the publication is subject to an arrangement with a supplier of goods or services”.

The High Court allowed the ACCC’s appeal, set aside the Full Court’s orders and restored the orders made by the original Federal Court judge in 2007 who came down in favour of the ACCC.

Source: The Age