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Updated ACCC Guidance strengthens business collaboration to tackle modern slavery

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has today released an update to its 2024 guidance on sustainability collaborations. This updated guidance includes new examples of modern slavery focused collaborative activities that are unlikely to raise competition law concerns, developed in partnership with the Office of the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner.

The case studies provide greater clarity for businesses seeking to work together to more effectively and efficiently identify and address shared modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains. The Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Chris Evans, welcomed the publication. Commissioner Evans said, Collaboration is essential if we are truly committed to driving real change for workers experiencing, or at risk of, modern slavery.

“The ACCC’s new modern-slavery focused case studies reflect what stakeholders told us they needed – more examples of activities that are likely to be low-risk from a competition law perspective. The new case studies reflect some activities that are already being undertaken by leading businesses, while others may point to opportunities for further collaboration. I thank the ACCC for the productive engagement with my Office.”

The updated guidance includes examples such as:

  • Notifying peers about a shared supplier with indicators or instances of modern slavery and progress on remediation
  • Joint investigation of allegations of modern slavery practices by a shared supplier
  • Development of joint voluntary supplier standards.

The ACCC’s guidance also highlights recommended guardrails around this conduct to avoid breaching competition law.

“We thank the ACCC for recognising the need for collective action to address complex sustainability challenges, such as modern slavery. We welcome this updated guidance, which helps provide increased clarity about circumstances in which businesses can work together to achieve meaningful outcomes for affected and at-risk workers across their supply chains,” said Kate Dundas, Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network Australia.

“The ACCC’s updated guidance is a welcome development for businesses seeking to collaborate to identify and address modern slavery risks more effectively. Creating a more enabling environment for appropriate collaboration will help business address the most serious risks to people in global supply chains,” said Margaret Stuart, Nestlé.

“Many businesses face similar modern slavery risks across their supply chains. Collaborative approaches to identifying and addressing these crimes can help avoid siloed or duplicative efforts, reduce conflicting expectations on suppliers, increase leverage and drive change at scale to improve outcomes for workers in modern slavery,” the Commissioner said.

The Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Office is grateful to the Competition and Responsible Business & ESG teams at law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth for their assistance in the Office’s engagement with the ACCC.

BACKGROUND

The ACCC’s guidance comprises:

Modern slavery is a pervasive global issue, with an estimated 27.6 million people in forced labour worldwide, including people working in the operations and supply chains of Australian companies, both domestically and abroad. More than half of the world’s forced labour occurs in the Asia-Pacific region, a key sourcing area for Australian businesses and consumers.

Recognising this challenge, the Modern Slavery Act was introduced in 2018 with bi-partisan support in Parliament. The Act requires large entities to report annually on the steps they have taken to identify and address modern slavery in their global operations and supply chains. The Australian Government recognises the importance of collaborative approaches to addressing modern slavery, and supporting sector collaboration is one of the key functions of the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner under the Modern Slavery Act.