Australia’s Watchdog Focuses On Construction Sector

The Australian competition watchdog is “prioritizing” an investigation of the construction sector amid concerns that large software providers are charging exorbitant rates to transfer data to other providers and maintain backups of old data.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has a Commercial Construction Unit to investigate various allegations of anti-competitive conduct in the commercial construction sector and is welcoming anonymous complaints and tip-offs. The watchdog listed the construction sector as a priority area for 2020.

InnovationAus has heard from a number of construction companies that had been looking to switch software providers, but had been told they would be charged fees of up to AU$250,000 to have their data transferred and historical records kept on the system.

This has prevented some of these companies from moving to a new software provider. Construction companies are legally required to keep all data related to their work for several years.

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