Other · Competition & Consumer Law
ACCC section 155 notice: response plan, document hold notice and AI-assisted review protocol
First-week plan for a client served with an ACCC s 155 notice: a document hold notice to staff, a response workplan, a privilege schedule, and a protocol for using search and AI review tools that records what the ACCC now asks to be told about AI tools and prompts.
- Kind
- Other. A precedent that fits none of the other kinds.
- Where it applies
- Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use as soon as a client receives a compulsory notice under s 155 of the Competition and Consumer Act to furnish information, produce documents or attend an examination. Do not use for voluntary information requests without adapting it, or for search warrants.
How AI may be used
Close supervision. Search tools and AI review can make a large production feasible within the notice period, but the search method must be defensible, every privilege call is the lawyer's, and the ACCC's guidelines ask recipients to describe AI tools and prompts used.
AI may
- Run agreed search terms and AI-assisted relevance ranking across collected data, with the method, prompts and settings logged.
- Draft first-pass coding (responsive, possibly privileged, confidential) for human review.
- Populate the privilege schedule fields from document metadata for a lawyer to complete.
AI must not
- Must not make final responsiveness decisions on documents that will not be reviewed by a person without an agreed validation method.
- Must not decide or describe the basis of any privilege claim.
- Must not draft any part of a written answer to the ACCC that is not verified against source documents, or prepare an examinee's answers.
- Must not process the material in a tool that trains on inputs or stores data outside approved locations.
The lawyer checks
- The search is objectively reasonable for the s 155(5B) defence and is described fully in the written response.
- Every privilege claim is supported and recorded in the ACCC's requested format.
- Written answers are accurate and signed by a competent officer.
- Deadlines and any extension requests are made before the due date.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Official form
Open the official form. Always use the current version from the issuer.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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