02 March 2007
Key Points:
The High Court is the next stop in this saga.
The long-running saga between the ACCC and the owners of the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline about how to calculate transport charges for that part of the pipeline that is regulated doesn't have an end in sight.
After the Full Court of the Federal Court basically accepted the approach of the ACCC, the pipeline owner sought special leave to appeal to the High Court. The High Court didn't seem very interested in getting into the intricacies of calculating the Initial Capital Base but it is clearly very interested in examining how the Federal Court gets power to review the decisions of the Competition Tribunal in this situation and what the scope of that review is.
The High Court will examine whether the Court properly confined itself to whether the decision of the Tribunal was made in accordance with law or whether it went further and, in effect, did its own substantive review.
If the appeal is successful it is likely that the case will go back to the Federal Court for yet another round in the never-ending story.
For further information, please contact Linda Evans.
