ACCC requirements for safety and information standards for consumer goods containing button batteries and button batteries themselves

Overview

The ACCC has conducted an investigation into button battery safety including considering the merits of implementing safety and information standards for button batteries and products containing button batteries under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

The ACCC is notifying the World Trade Organisation of the proposed requirements for Australian mandatory safety and information standards for consumer goods containing button batteries and button batteries themselves under section 2.9 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. A copy of the proposed requirements to be specified in the Australian mandatory safety and information standards is provided below. We welcome any comments or feedback on the proposed requirements from WTO members.

The ACCC intends to make a recommendation to the Assistant Treasurer to introduce mandatory safety and information standards in 2020.

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.

How to make a submission

Interested parties can provide a submission via email to:

tbt.enquiry@dfat.gov.au

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

Submissions are due by 29 November 2020.

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.