THE Australian Newsagents Federation has sought Australian Competition and Consumer Commission permission to hold representative negotiations with individual major publishers and distributors on behalf of newsagents.
It has named 10 parties with whom it wants to negotiate collectively.
Under the arrangement, the ANF will negotiate the terms and conditions of contracts between each newsagent and the individual publisher or distributor.
The arrangement will run for six months.
However, the ANF has excluded from its application any authorisation to negotiate common territories for each newsagent and the rates of commission to be paid to each newsagent, or to engage in exclusionary boycott behaviour in breach of section 45 of the Trade Practices Act.
Pending determination of the application, the ACCC has granted interim authorisation for the negotiations to begin.
The nominated parties are John Fairfax Holdings, News Ltd, Australian Consolidated Press, Rural Press, Pacific Publications, the Horwitz Group, FPC Magazines, NDD Distribution, Gordon & Gotch and Australian Provincial Newspapers.
