Talk:Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare Pty Ltd

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare Pty Ltd is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 4, 2010.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
January 14, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed
January 30, 2010	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Current status: Featured article

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Stub

This article is a stub at this stage: will be adding more shortly. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article now expanded. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Baxter Healthcare/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Fantastic article. Informative, detailed, well-written, and well-referenced - very nearly a straight pass for GA.

Couple of very small quibbles though:

The article quotes Wright and Seddon before explaining who they are
There's a malformed reference under "Joint judgement"

Once those are fixed, this is an easy pass. Rebecca (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for that review. I fixed the malformed reference and the quote from Wright (now explaining who he is in the first mention of him and just saying "Robertson Wright" or "Wright" thereafter). I can't find the Seddon one though - as far as I can tell he's first quoted in "Criticism", under "Reaction to judgment".
- On the topic of Seddon, I had one concern with quoting his criticisms, which is that he is an employee of Blake Dawson, the firm that represented Baxter. I don't think this is a problem given his academic credentials, but I thought it best to point it out.
- Do you think FA could be a realistic shot? I'm not really familiar with the GA/FA process yet. --Mkativerata (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - It might be worth explicitly mentioning at that point that Blake Dawson was the firm that represented Baxter; I'd say it's relevant, and something I missed on my reading. You're right about the Seddon reference; I was thinking of the malformed cite, which you just fixed. If you can add that pointer about Seddon, then I'll pass the article straight away. As for FA status - I think it's definitely well on the way, and you could certainly nominate it. You'll need to expect much tougher scrutiny though (some of which can be incredibly finicky) - though personally I think I'd probably support it for FA as is. Rebecca (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thanks, I've put it at footnote 38 for now because I thought the explanation was too lengthy for the body of the article. But more than happy to find a way to put it in the article body if you think that's more appropriate. --Mkativerata (talk) 17:37, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Might be better in the text of the article, but I'm not much bothered either way. In any case, article passed for GA. Rebecca (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article title and treatment throughout

Is the common convention in Australia to use v rather than v. in the title of legal decisions? (U.S. legal decisions are normally formatted with a period e.g., Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, yes it is common convention in australia to use v rather than v.. See for example how it is done in the official report of this case: [1] Cheers --Mkativerata (talk) 17:45, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, just checking:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"[2007] HCA 38" external link

I admit I'm none too familiar with law articles, but the "[2007 HCA 38]" external link right after the article title seems to be a little out of place? It's already in the info box, and wasn't placed as such when the article passed onto FA status. Rehevkor ✉ 18:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I wouldn't mind seeing it go either. Consider it done. --Mkativerata (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pty Limited?

Stupid question, but shouldn't it either be "Proprietary Limited" or "Pty Ltd"? – iride scent 20:25, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the formal report the full name of the respondent(s) is "Baxter Healthcare Pty Limited & Ors" (the Ors are State Governments). I'd support a change to either of your suggestions though. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:30, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Fair enough… – iride scent 20:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Legalese help

This is not the most readable article. The lead in particular is written in fairly dense language compared to the expectations in WP:LEAD to provide an accessible overview.

"More generally, the case concerned the principles of derivative governmental immunity:[1] whether the immunity of a government from a statute extends to third parties that conduct business with the government."

"Immunity" has a specific meaning in a legal context and should be explained. "Third parties that conduct business with the government" is also somewhat vague. Do I conduct business with the government by paying taxes? Is it specific to holders of government contracts?

This appears to fail criterion 1a: clarity and accessibility are fundamentals of good writing.

If nothing else, why is this a landmark case? The lead gives no information on why your typical Australian (or anyone else for that matter) cares: Does it prevent a major loophole abused by corporate interests to avoid lawsuits? Does it represent a fundamental shift in the relationship between the government and its contractors? Was the outcome unexpected and controversial? Will it fundamentally change the way business is done in Australia?

I'm usually impressed by the quality of Featured Articles, but I've reviewed a few articles for good article status and I don't even think it meets that standard with the lack of context or impact or explanation. SDY (talk) 20:43, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll take on board the criticism about legalese - I agree it needs to be accessible and if you don't think it is I'll try to make it so. It just might take a bit of thought. As for the "landmark case"; frankly it is only significant in respect of the change to the law it made as outlined in the "Significance" section. No reliable sources suggest anything like fundamental changes to the way business is done. But I don't think proving the significance of a case is relevant to FA (of course if it is that insignificant it could be a notability issue for WP:AfD). --Mkativerata (talk) 21:31, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately, no, importance is not a FA criterion, but if it's not that important a case then the article should say so rather than implying it was a "significant precedent in the law." SDY (talk) 21:42, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well a reliable source did say it was a "historic decision",[2] so "significant precedent" is a fair representation of that. But there is a big difference between "historic" and "significant" as a matter of legal development, and "historic" and "significant" generally. This case certainly surpasses the former standard but enormously fails the latter. In any case, I've just pumped up the significance section a bit to explain briefly why it was received as an "historic decision". --Mkativerata (talk) 21:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I read a fair bit of the SMH (same publisher), and I don't know that a news magazine article calling it "historic" is necessarily a reason for Wikipedia to agree. The Newspaper of record that we list for Australia, The Australian, has a search function, and I find no record of the case under searches for ACCC, Baxter, 2007, and mixes of those. I'm not finding a whole lot on Google about it (other than copy-pastes of this wikipedia article). SDY (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you're Australian, but the SMH and The Age have very similar circulations and certainly similar reputations for reliability as The Australian. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Might want to reconsider Wikipedia's page on newspapers of record, then. At any rate, if it wasn't even covered by all major news outlets... how important could it be? At this point, I'm concerned that the article overstates the significance of the topic. (For reference, I'm an American that reads online editions of Australian, Argentine, British, and sometimes Indian news since they offer a different perspective from the domestic sources). SDY (talk) 22:18, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, significance depends on context. This case is no Roe v Wade, but it is still significant for the change to the narrow area of law it effected. The relevant statements in the article are: "The High Court's judgment was received as a significant precedent in the law of derivative governmental immunity in Australia", and "The judgment was also received as an "historic decision" setting a precedent for government procurement, on the basis that businesses might no longer be able to rely on immunity from the TPA when contracting with governments". I think those statements (since I've amended them following your comments) accurately represent that the case is significant, in a very particular context. I think it would be quite possible for a case to be significant in a legal sense (eg as measured by coverage in legal journals) and yet get zero coverage in newspapers: in Australia, newspapers pay much less attention to the judgments of appellate courts than in the US. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

14 years after the discussion above, but hopefully constructive. Possibly the best reference to the case was as a 'test case' rather than 'historic' or 'significant'. This was a significant part of the intention of the ACCC and how it was described by Baxter at the time. It has since been the subject of study at universities and cited in many cases since, including in the High Court. CertifiedMadScientist (talk) 08:50, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Commercial law is not an area the public generally care about, therefore not something the mainstream media will publish. The fact that it appears at all demonstrates its importance, especially as the products are not sold to consumers.

Per my other comment, it set a precedent used many times since and formed part of university courses - therefore also demonstrating importance in Australian law.

Perhaps from an international perspective, the OECD Global Forum consideration of it is sufficient to mark it as a significant case: https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/GF/WD(2010)63/en/pdf CertifiedMadScientist (talk) 08:57, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Impact on State Purchasing

I am not from a legal or public service background so this would not be my area to author. In the OECD document, https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/GF/WD(2010)63/en/pdf, it discusses the subsequent actions taken by the ACCC to reform state purchasing.

Perhaps someone with the expertise to do so may want to contribute this; particularly as it addresses the risks of cartel conduct. CertifiedMadScientist (talk) 09:12, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]