Court finds Seven Network breached laws

The High Court has found a television current affairs program breached trade
practices laws by entering into a deal for exclusive get-rich-quick stories.
In October 2003 and January 2004 the Seven Network's Today Tonight program broadcast
exclusive stories on an investment mentoring program called Wildly Wealthy Women
(WWW).
The exclusives were organised with Today Tonight by a marketer who had made
arrangements with WWW to receive a commission for every woman who signed up to the
investment program.
The Today Tonight programs stated that participants in the WWW program would become
millionaires through investing in property, even if they had no money to start with.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) took action, saying the TV
program had no reasonable grounds to make such assertions.
The Seven Network did not dispute that the programs contained untrue claims about
the wealth and assets of the two women who were offering the training.
Nor did it dispute that certain representations made in the episodes were misleading
and deceptive.
But the Full Court of the Federal Court in June 2008 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.
While Section 52 of the act bans a corporation from engaging in misleading or
deceptive conduct, there is an exemption for "prescribed information providers",
such as broadcasters.
But the ACCC argued in the High Court that because of the arrangement made between
the network and WWW to broadcast the program, the broadcast was not covered by the
exemption.
A majority of members of the High Court on Thursday 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 in 2007 by the original Federal Court judge who came down
in favour of the ACCC.
The Seven Network said it was disappointed with the decision and had argued a
"publisher's defence" applied.
"The High Court has held that certain statements in those broadcasts were in breach
of the Trade Practices Act and that the publisher's defence did not apply to those
statements," a statement said.
"The court did however reconfirm that the key aim of this defence is to maintain a
vigorous free press, something Seven continues to uphold."