Coles has mounted a full-throated defence of its Down Down promotional pricing scheme in the Federal Court, with the supermarket giant arguing its discounts were genuine, legitimate, and — in the company's own words — "fair dinkum."
The Melbourne-headquartered retailer, facing an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission prosecution over the advertising campaign, told the court on Monday that its price reductions were real and that consumers were not misled about the value of the promotions.
The choice of the phrase "fair dinkum" is worth a moment's consideration. It is a piece of vernacular as deeply embedded in Australian culture as the meat pie or the long weekend. It means honest, genuine, the real deal. Deploying it in a legal argument about pricing honesty is a calculated rhetorical move — an attempt to wrap a $43-billion-a-year corporation in the linguistic clothing of the battler.
Coles' legal team argued that while some prices were indeed raised before the promotional period, the structure of the Down Down scheme nonetheless delivered genuine value to consumers, and that any price movements were within normal commercial practice and were not designed to deceive.
The ACCC's case centres on allegations that Coles systematically inflated the reference price on hundreds of grocery lines in the period immediately before applying the yellow Down Down tags, making the subsequent reduction appear larger than it actually was. The regulator brought the case after its 2024 supermarket inquiry found widespread evidence of what it characterised as misleading promotional pricing across the industry.
The timing of the court defence runs alongside the regulator's own extraordinary retreat on penalty — the ACCC has simultaneously recommended to the court that any fine be reduced from its original $150 million demand to just $200,000, a figure consumer advocates have described as derisory.
Australia's peak consumer body, Choice, has been watching the case closely. Australian households spend an average of $9,000 a year on groceries and transparent pricing practices are foundational to market trust.
The Federal Court is yet to hear full submissions on penalty, and the presiding judge is not bound by either party's recommendations. Legal observers have noted the judge may impose a significantly higher figure than the ACCC's revised position suggests.
Coles operates more than 850 supermarkets across Australia and employs approximately 120,000 people. The ACCC action is the largest consumer law case against a major supermarket in Australian history.
The outcome will set a precedent for how Australia's consumer protection regime handles misleading promotional pricing — not just for Coles, but for Woolworths and the broader retail sector. Whether "fair dinkum" turns out to be a persuasive legal defence is now a matter for the court.
