Judge stresses danger of batteries, which can kill or injure children who swallow them
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) highlighted a recent ruling of the Federal Court’s Full Court, upholding a $14m civil penalty against Fewstone Pty Ltd, trading as City Beach, for failing to comply with mandatory button battery standards.
“This highlights the importance of businesses implementing systems to ensure they are complying with the button battery standards, which are intended to protect the safety of children,” said Luke Woodward, ACCC commissioner, in a media release.
As a retailer of clothing, shoes, and accessories in Australia and internationally, City Beach sold relatively inexpensive toys, gadgets, and other novelty products, many of which included small, circular button batteries.
In April 2025, the respondent ACCC commenced a court proceeding for breaches of the button battery safety standards for the first time. The ACCC requested a $14m pecuniary penalty, while City Beach suggested a $3.15m penalty.
On 22 December 2025, the Federal Court ordered City Beach to pay a $14m penalty for supplying non-compliant button battery products from 22 June 2022 to 24 October 2024.
The court held that City Beach sold products that breached the Consumer Goods (Products Containing Button/Coin Batteries) Safety Standard 2020 (the safety standard) or the Consumer Goods (Products Containing Button/Coin Batteries) Information Standard 2020 (the information standard), in contravention of s 106(1) of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) in Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).
According to the court, the safety standard provided that a consumer good’s button battery should not release during reasonably foreseeable use or misuse and that the battery compartment’s design should prevent young children from opening it.
To protect families who might not know about a product’s button battery or other potential risks, the information standard stated that consumer goods with a button battery should have prescribed warnings on instructions and packaging and that unpackaged goods should have warnings on attached tags or stickers.
Appealing against the $14m penalty. City Beach alleged that it was manifestly excessive.
In Fewstone Pty Ltd v Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [2026] FCAFC 104, the Full Court of the Federal Court dismissed the appeal and ordered the appellant City Beach to pay the respondent ACCC’s appeal costs. The court explained that the total penalty was extremely large because the number of contraventions was very large.
The Full Court recognised the danger of button batteries, which can kill or significantly injure young children who swallow or ingest them. The court found the s 106(1) breaches very serious because City Beach sold, within the relevant period:
The Full Court noted that the ACCC had a public awareness campaign for the mandatory standards and that suppliers or state regulators told City Beach representatives numerous times about the mandatory standards and about City Beach’s sales breaching those standards.
The Full Court ruled that City Beach lacked a process to transmit this important information to its directors or senior managers and a program to prevent the sale of non-compliant button battery products.
The Full Court added that City Beach did not know that there were relevant safety standards for products or that it should ensure compliance with those standards.
“The ACCC will continue to take strong enforcement action where appropriate against businesses which fail to comply with the mandatory button battery safety standards,” Woodward said in the ACCC’s media release.
“Businesses are on notice that they must take button battery safety seriously and implement effective systems to ensure compliance with the mandatory standards, or they will risk substantial penalties for non-compliance,” he added.
Here are some other recent decisions by the Federal Court of Australia involving the ACCC.
The ACCC called attention to the Federal Court’s 11 June 2026 decision determining that a training provider engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and made false or misleading representations in connection with certain online courses.
In a proceeding in which ACCC alleged breaches of the ACL against bedroom furniture supplier Emma Sleep, the Federal Court issued a 24 April 2026 decision imposing pecuniary penalties totalling $15m.
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