Checklist · Competition & Consumer Law
Voluntary consumer product recall: plan, ACCC notification and consumer recall notice checklist
Checklist to run a voluntary consumer product safety recall: deciding to recall, notifying the ACCC within 2 days of taking recall action, risk and product identification, lead supplier, remedy, consumer notice wording, progress reporting and closing the recall.
- Kind
- Checklist. Steps or checks to work through and tick off.
- Where it applies
- Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 2 authorities it cites, for Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when a client supplier has decided, or is deciding, to recall a consumer good for safety reasons, and to prepare a recall plan before one is needed. It applies wherever the client sits in the supply chain. It does not cover compulsory recalls ordered by a minister or recalls under food or therapeutic goods schemes.
How AI may be used
AI may assemble product identifiers, supply data and a draft notice from the client’s records; the lawyer and the client decide whether to recall, the remedy and the wording consumers see.
AI may
- Compile model numbers, batch codes, barcodes, supply dates, quantities and retailers from the client’s sales and stock records
- Fill the consumer recall notice from the agreed hazard description and remedy
- Track responses, returns and remedies against units supplied for the progress report
AI must not
- Must not describe the hazard, its cause or the risk level in the notice beyond what the engineering assessment and the lawyer have settled
- Must not submit the recall notification or publish the notice
- Must not decide that a recall is finished
The lawyer checks
- The ACCC is told within 2 days of taking recall action, and any mandatory report for a death, serious injury or illness is made at the same time
- The consumer notice states the product, the hazard, what consumers should do now and the remedy, plainly and without downplaying the risk
- The remedy offered is consistent with the consumer guarantees and does not require consumers to give up their rights
- Distributors and retailers know who leads the recall and what each must do
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
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The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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