40 Rod Sims

As head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims is a part of the powerful enforcement club: the club that few, outside the media, are game to criticise.

That’s lucky, because Sims is determined to open the watchdog up to scrutiny. He made such a promise early on in his tenure by declaring that the ACCC, which has been known to surrender before the very law that invests power in it, would be seeing some significant changes under his reign.

He promised to oversee the ACCC putting more on the line by changing its almost clean winning record of the first instance litigation into which it enters, while also targeting a number of specific industries in a bid to end the monopolies that exist within them.

Sims became the public face of the ACCC's long battle against the Metcash acquisition of Franklins supermarkets, and indeed against all big retailers looking to make “incremental” acquisitions of smaller stores and players.

More recently, he’s established tough penalties for businesses making false claims of price increases as a result of the carbon tax, and launched a hotline for consumers to dob in a carbon scammer.

*For more on Rod Sims see the original profile.