140 complaints in a month was all it took
When the Commerce Commission received approximately 140 complaints about fuel prices in a single month, representing roughly 10 percent of its total complaint volume, the response was swift. Commissioner Bryan Chapple went public, cross-referencing fuel import costs, talking directly to fuel companies, and checking the Gaspy price comparison app.
His warning to the NZ Herald was pointed: “Nobody wants to see fuel companies using the situation in the Middle East as an excuse to unjustifiably increase prices at the pump. Any retail price increases should be aligned with actual increases in the cost of sourcing fuel.”
No prosecution was filed. No fine was levied. The complaint cluster alone was enough to trigger public regulatory pressure, media scrutiny, and industry-wide reputational damage. That is the mechanism executives need to understand.
Complaint patterns are now an enforcement trigger
The Commission’s Enforcement Response Guidelines, updated in July 2024, lay out a graduated toolkit from compliance advice letters through to court proceedings. The key detail buried in the framework is that the Commission uses complaint patterns, not individual complaints, to prioritise where it directs enforcement resources.
Repeated friction from a specific firm or across a sector is what moves a matter up the queue. Self-reporting and cooperation are explicitly noted as mitigating factors, meaning firms that identify and fix problems early are better positioned than those that wait to be caught.
The scale of consumer friction across the economy is substantial. MBIE’s quarterly reports recorded 9,323 consumer enquiries in Q3 2022/23, a 33 percent increase year-on-year. The top sectors generating complaints included personal products, motor vehicle sales and repair, electronics, and commercial services. Fair Trading Act issues concentrated in insurance, banking, and telecommunications. Of all enquiries, 67 percent related to direct sales and 24 percent to online purchases.
Bell Gully’s analysis of the Commission’s 2024-25 priorities flags ecommerce businesses as facing heightened scrutiny on pricing transparency, customer testimonials, and subscription terms. If your business operates in any of those spaces, the Commission is already watching.
The penalty calculus is shifting
For years, large consumer-facing firms could treat Commerce Commission fines as a manageable line item. That era is ending.
Commission chair John Small has publicly argued that current penalties are inadequate, telling interest.co.nz that powerful firms which mislead consumers should face “a commensurately chunky penalty … otherwise, it just looks like a cost of doing business”. The One New Zealand case set a marker: the penalty was increased on appeal to $3.675 million, with the judge explicitly noting that deterrence required fines calibrated to the offender’s scale.
Meanwhile, the Commission has opened an entirely new enforcement front. Its first-ever unconscionable conduct proceedings targeted The TV Shop for alleged high-pressure sales of bed and chair products to customers with cognitive impairments, with maximum penalties of $600,000 per breach for businesses and $200,000 for individuals. Deputy chair Anne Callinan described the alleged conduct as “some of the worst we have seen”.
The unconscionable conduct test is deliberately broad. It asks whether business conduct departs substantially from generally accepted standards. That is a standard that can catch firms whose lawyers signed off on individual practices but whose aggregate customer experience looks predatory.
Leadership churn hasn’t softened the appetite
The Commission is navigating four senior departures in quick succession, including CEO Adrienne Meikle, Commissioner Vhari McWha, and two general managers. Chair Small characterised this as manageable turnover and emphasised the board’s direction remained “unchanged and clear and stable.”
Given Small’s public comments on penalty inadequacy and deterrence, that stability of direction should concern firms already generating complaint clusters, not reassure them.
The legitimate pushback
Not everyone is comfortable with the Commission’s expanding reach. Chapman Tripp’s Lucy Cooper has raised concerns about proposed Commerce Act changes, warning they would “add unnecessary uncertainty, time and cost” and give the Commission “a lot more discretion or power without solid process protections.” Her concern about retroactive enforcement, where a sequence of separate transactions could be treated as a single unlawful act, is a legitimate one.
For businesses, this reinforces the case for engaging legal counsel early on compliance questions. The rules of engagement are still being defined, and the firms that shape their own compliance frameworks now will be better positioned than those that react after the Commission comes knocking.
What this means for your board agenda
The practical takeaway is straightforward. Consumer complaints are no longer just a customer service metric. They are a compliance signal that the Commerce Commission actively monitors, publicly acts on, and uses to prioritise enforcement. The penalty environment is shifting toward genuine deterrence. New legal tools like the unconscionable conduct prohibition give the Commission broader reach than ever.
If your firm is generating repeated consumer friction, the Commission is telling you, publicly, that it is watching. The question is whether your complaint data is reaching the people who can act on it before the regulator does.
Sources
- Fuel price complaints on the rise as Commerce Commission receives 140 over past month (2025)
- Commerce Commission warns businesses over petrol surcharges and price rises (2025)
- Commerce Commission Enforcement Response Guidelines July 2024 (2024-07)
- Commerce Commission 2024-25 priorities: key takeaways for New Zealand businesses (2024)
- ComCom boss wants fines for breaching Fair Trading Act increased (2024)
- Unconscionable conduct: enforcement gets underway (2026-03-02)
- Commerce Commission files proceedings against The TV Shop (2026-02-04)
- ComCom hit by wave of top-level resignations (2026-02-20)
- Concerns raised about possible changes to Commerce Act