ACMA has released its 2012 Annual Report, describing the TCP Code as the ‘centrepiece’ of a ‘ better consumer experience in the telecommunications industry’ and assuring government that it is ‘watching the extent to which industry lifts its game, and will be ready to act should the need arise.’
The report contains a diagram showing the regulator’s broad trigger points for stages of enforcement action. While it won’t win any Best Infographic of the Year nominations, it is useful for visualising ACMA’s approach.
Getting ACMA’s big picture
The diagram should be read from the bottom up, so that the sequence is:
Preliminary enquiry
Investigation
Direction / Warning
Litigation
What’s useful is to note the triggers for that step (which are contained in the grey boxes) and the details of the step (which are set out below the grey boxes).
Why it’s an important picture
We sometimes find that clients are surprised when a regulator like ACMA escalates an incident in what, to the client, seems a sudden or arbitrary way. But if you understand the issue processing ‘engine’ that drives a regulator, what is likely to happen next isn’t so unpredictable.
