Button battery safety - Assessment of regulatory options - Consultation paper

Overview

For the purposes of the ACCC's investigation, button cell batteries and coin cell batteries are each referred to as 'button batteries'. In the battery industry, the term 'coin' is associated with lithium batteries and the term 'button' is associated with non-lithium batteries.

As part of this process, the ACCC has released the below Button Battery Safety - Assessment of regulatory options - Consultation paper for comment. This includes detailed policy options as well as a series of questions for stakeholder consideration. Responses will inform the ACCC’s development of a Final Recommendation to the Commonwealth Government in 2020.

The ACCC has prepared the below industry factsheet which includes a summary of the ACCC's proposed requirements to improve button battery safety.

How to make a submission

Interested parties can upload a submission or complete the individual questions via this online consultation. Please refer to the consultation paper below when completing the questions.

Alternatively, submissions can be lodged by post or email to:

Director
Button Battery Taskforce
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
GPO Box 3131
CANBERRA ACT 2601

nationalprojects@accc.gov.au

Please include your name, organisation and contact details when making a submission.

Submissions are due by: 30 April 2020

Stakeholder feedback is very important to further consideration of these options. The ACCC has planned for a six week consultation period in which formal submissions can be provided. However, given the challenges confronting all stakeholders with COVID-19, the ACCC is open to working with all stakeholders around timing and ways of offering feedback.  If you have challenges meeting the deadline as it approaches, please email nationalprojects@accc.gov.au. We are able to talk to you about alternative forms of receiving your views or deferred receipt of formal submissions.

All submissions will be treated as public documents and published on the ACCC website, unless otherwise requested. Interested parties wishing to submit confidential or commercial-in-confidence material, should submit both a public version and commercial-in-confidence version of their submission (PDF or Word document format).

Any commercial-in-confidence material should be clearly identified, and the public version of the submission should identify where commercial-in-confidence material has been removed.

More information about the ACCC's treatment of confidential information can be found in the ACCC's Information Policy.