Australian court fines Dell unit $6.5 mln for misleading discounts

Australia’s Federal Court has on Monday ordered Dell Technologies’ local unit to pay $10 million Australian dollars ($6.46 million) in penalties.

The court has fined the company for making misleading representations on its website about discounts for add-on computer monitors.

Back in June in a legal action brought by the country’s competition regulator, Dell Australia was found guilty by the Federal Court to have misled customers about the prices or discounts on add-on monitors on its website.

“This outcome sends a strong message to businesses that making false representations about prices or inflating discounts is a serious breach of consumer law and will attract substantial penalties,” Liza Carver, commissioner of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said.

Dell Australia, which sold over 5,300 add-on monitors with overstated discounts during the period from August 2019 and December 16, 2021, will be working “with impacted customers to provide appropriate refunds plus interest and are taking steps to improve our pricing processes to ensure this sort of error does not happen again,” a spokesperson for Dell Australia told Reuters.