Highly rated competition lawyer Liza Carver quits ACCC; competition regulator clears Qube’s $332.5m deal

Liza Carver will leave the competition regulator to return to private practice. Her departure comes ahead of the long promised competition case against Google, which is due to be launched soon.

Qube workers in action. Picture: Supplied

ACCC enforcement commissioner Liza Carver has quit to return to private practice two years before her five-year term expires in 2027.

The move was announced on Thursday, the same day the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission surprisingly approved Qube’s $332.5m acquisition of Wallenius Willhelmsens roll-on roll-off car port facilities in Melbourne.

The deal gives Qube a monopoly on handling car imports into Australia and comes after the ACCC accepted detailed behavioural undertakings from Qube.

The ACCC is normally not keen on accepting behavioural price undertakings to clear mergers, and instead prefers so-called structural undertakings.

Ms Carver’s departure comes ahead of the long promised competition case against Google, which is due to be launched some time soon. The case centres on the use of Google as the default search option on Samsung mobile phones.

ACCC enforcement commissioner Liza Carver has quit to return to private practice.

ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb will assume Ms Carver’s responsibilities pending the appointment of a replacement by the new government.

Ms Carver, a highly regarded competition lawyer, is returning to Herbert Smith Freehills where she was a partner before taking up the ACCC role in 2022. Before that, she worked at Gilbert & Tobin and Ashurst.

Her career has featured terms in both the public and private sectors, including a stint as an associate commissioner in the ACCC predecessor, the Trade Practices Commission under then-chair Alan Fels.

It is unusual for commissioners to leave midterm, but the 62-year-old Ms Carver, had expressed a desire to return to private practice.

In a statement, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said, “Liza is one of Australia’s leading minds in the field of competition and consumer law. Her contribution to the ACCC has been outstanding, and she will leave an important and lasting legacy.

“Liza’s legal skill and rigour, strategic insights and guidance have shaped our enforcement program in recent years, and her input has been central to many of our most important outcomes,” she added.

Ms Carver said: “It has been an absolute privilege to serve as a commissioner with the ACCC under the leadership of Gina Cass-Gottlieb. The importance of the agency to the welfare of consumers and the competitiveness of the Australian economy cannot be overstated, nor can the diligence and commitment of its staff and commissioners. I look forward to watching its successes in the future.”

The ACCC is a complex organisation covering a range of issues. ACCC figures show enforcement interventions including enforceable undertakings have totalled 504 over the last decade, or 50 matters a year, with 75 being competition matters.

Over the past three years under Ms Cass-Gottlieb, this has fallen to 30 a year, but the percentage of competition matters has increased from 14 per cent to 22 per cent.

Actual litigation has totalled 181 cases over the decade, or 18 cases a year, with competition matters totalling 35, or 20 per cent.

In the last three years, the number of cases launched totalled 24, or eight a year, with six competition cases, or 25 per cent of all cases.

The ACCC has not publicly opposed any merger this financial year, after rejecting three a year in the previous two years.