Unfair Trading Practices in Franchising: What the 2026 Reforms Mean for Dealers and Small Business

Unfair trading practices are commercial behaviours that exploit significant imbalances in bargaining power to cause detriment to the weaker party, even where the conduct falls short of fraud or misrepresentation. In franchise and dealership relationships, this most commonly takes the form of unilateral changes to the business model, short-notice termination without adequate compensation, and artificial time pressure designed to limit a franchisee’s ability to respond. The fundamental problem under existing Australian law is that courts have consistently held that commercially hard conduct of this kind does not necessarily satisfy the demanding threshold for statutory unconscionable conduct under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The Mercedes-Benz dealers litigation, which ran from 2021 to its final resolution by the High Court in November 2025, is the most significant illustration of that gap.

For your business, the commercial stakes are high. The Federal Government introduced the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Bill 2026 into the House of Representatives on 1 April 2026, creating a new general prohibition on unfair trading practices that is deliberately designed to capture conduct that currently falls through the cracks of existing law. A separate consultation on extending those protections to small businesses and franchisees closes on 10 July 2026. Together, these reforms represent the most significant expansion of commercial protections in Australian consumer law in a generation.

In 2025, commercial arbitration has firmly replaced state litigation as the preferred battlefield for international business in Vietnam. But it is not without its traps.

This guide demystifies the process, breaks down the costs, and explains the landmark 2025 legal reforms that have fundamentally changed the game for foreign investors.