Tell the ACCC of the recall

  • You are required under s128 of the Australian Consumer Law to tell us of the recall within 2 days of taking a recall action by submitting a recall notification.
  • If you have supplied people overseas, you also need to tell them and give the ACCC a copy of your notice.
  • Submit a mandatory report within 2 days of becoming aware of any death, serious injury or illness associated with a consumer product you supplied.
  • The ACCC is authorised by the Commonwealth Minister to receive recall notifications and publish them.

Checklist

  • Tell the ACCC about your recall within 2 days of taking a recall action.
  • Tell overseas persons about the recall and send a copy of this notice to the ACCC within 10 days - if you have supplied the recalled product to persons overseas.
See the complete supplier checklist

Submit a recall notification form

Submitting a recall notification is a legal requirement under the Australian Consumer Law and failure to notify may result in a penalty.

The ACCC receives the recall notification on behalf of the Commonwealth Minister.

You only need to tell us when a consumer product is being recalled and the reasons are safety related. See when to recall a consumer product for more information.

Fill in the recall notification form within 2 days of taking recall action with a consumer product. If the first day is on a weekend, then this is day one. If the second day falls on a weekend or public holiday, then the form must be sent by the end of the next business day.

When you tell us of your recall, you must state that the consumer products are under recall and address each of the following:

  • if the consumer goods contain a defect, are dangerous, or have a dangerous characteristic, describe why they are defective or dangerous; and
  • if reasonably foreseeable use or misuse of the consumer goods is dangerous, describe the circumstances of that use or misuse; and
  • if the consumer goods do not, or it is likely that they do not, meet a safety standard for the goods that is in force, describe the reason for the non-compliance or likely non-compliance; and
  • if an interim ban, or a permanent ban, on the consumer goods is in force, state that fact.

The recall notification form lets you know what information you need to give us.

You may not have all the information when telling us

We recognise that you may not have all the available information when telling us about a recall. We are aware that risk levels can change when you receive more information and can better understand and assess the risk of the product.

If you do not have all the required information, fill out the form and submit what you have. You can email further information as it becomes available with the reference number you received when you submitted the recall to recalls@accc.gov.au.

Send us draft recall advertisements

Include draft recall advertisements if you can when submitting your recall notification.

While we welcome early draft consumer recall documents, the primary objective of notifying your recall is that you meet the 2-day notification requirement.

Recall advertisements raise awareness of the recall and are used by suppliers across many forms of media, including print and online. They can also be used in direct communications to consumers.

Advertisements have a red hatched border with a red safety triangle in the top left corner. For most product safety recalls, advertisements include a headline ‘Product Safety Recall’ and includes the words ‘See productsafety.gov.au for Australian product recall information’ at the base of the notice.

Your recall advertisements and other communications to consumers should clearly describe:

  • product description
  • picture of the product
  • why the product is being recalled (any defect or dangerous characteristic)
  • the hazard and how it could lead to injuries, and if injuries have occurred say so 
  • the remedy and what consumers should do, and
  • how consumers can contact the supplier.
Example recall notice

Make sure that there are staff available to respond to consumers on the contact details you give on the recall advertisements.

Your recall advertisement is attached to your recall notice on the Product Safety Australia website.

You may need to change the amount of information available on your recall advertisement to suit the communications channel you use. Always give consumers a link to the full details and recalls advertisement that is on your website or the recall notice on the Product Safety Australia website.

Examples of advertisements and communications are in our recall communications package.

The ACCC does not consider that submitting a recall notification to the ACCC is in itself an admission of liability.

Tell people who are overseas and give us a copy

Tell people you have supplied the product to, who are located outside Australia, in writing as soon as practical.

Tell them that the product is being recalled in Australia and describe:

  • the defect or why it is dangerous, or the use or misuse that is dangerous
  • if the product does not meet or is likely not to meet a mandatory safety standard or is banned.

Within 10 days of informing overseas people, you must give a copy of your notice to the Commonwealth Minister. You can do this by emailing the notice to recallsmonitoring@accc.gov.au.

This is a requirement under the Australian Consumer Law.

If you are coordinating the recall for other suppliers who have supplied the product to a person outside Australia, you need to make sure that all the suppliers meet this notification requirement.

Report any product-related deaths, serious injuries, or illnesses

Submit a mandatory report within 2 days of becoming aware of any death, serious injury or illness associated with a consumer product you supplied.

You are required to submit a mandatory report if your product has caused a death, serious injury or illness, regardless of whether you have recalled the product. This is a legal requirement under the Australian Consumer Law and penalties may apply if you do not report or take longer than 2 days to report.

A serious illness or injury is an acute physical injury or illness which needs medical or surgical treatment by, or under the supervision of, a medical practitioner or a nurse.

A mandatory report is when a supplier tells the Commonwealth Minister of a death, serious injury or illness that was caused, or may have been caused, by the use or foreseeable misuse of a consumer product.

The ACCC accepts your mandatory report on behalf of the Commonwealth Minister.

If you need to submit a mandatory report for a product you have recalled, reassess the risk and update your communication strategy. This includes adding a message to your recall communications that serious injuries have occurred.

Reporting a near miss, injury or illness

You can report a near miss, injury or illness that doesn’t meet the threshold for a mandatory report in your regular progress reports or using the voluntary supplier report on our website.

More guidance for businesses on mandatory reporting obligations is on our website. Extra guidance on how we manage confidentiality requests is set out in our Information Policy, Privacy Policy and Accountability Framework for Investigations.

Sometimes another government agency leads a recall

Different government agencies are responsible for regulating the safety of different types of products. Find out if another government agency will lead a recall.

Actions we take when we receive your notification

The ACCC is authorised by the Commonwealth Minister to receive recall notifications and publish them.

We assess your recall notice

When reviewing your recall notice, we consider whether you have:

  • complied with the reporting requirements under the Australian Consumer Law
  • set out a suitable strategy for the recall.

We check for:

  • clear identification of the product including high-quality photographs
  • a simple description of the defect (why the product is being recalled) and the hazard (the most serious possible harm to the consumer)
  • clear advice to consumers about what they should do
  • proper remedies for consumers
  • a suitable communication strategy to alert consumers
  • how consumers can contact you for help or more information.

We will contact you when we assess your recall notice and discuss any changes  needed. We may ask you to change the information in your recall notice and advertisements to make the information clearer to consumers.

Do not wait to start telling consumers and others in the supply chain about your recall. People should be alerted about unsafe products as quickly as possible.

We publish your recall notice

We publish your recall notice on the Product Safety Australia website. We may also promote your recall on the ACCC Product Safety Twitter and Facebook feeds, or other social media, to help raise consumer awareness. You can share these on your own social media pages.

The recall notice we publish on the Product Safety Australia website includes:

  • a description of the product (including photographs), why you are recalling it and the maximum potential injury the product can cause to consumers, and note if injuries have already occurred
  • what consumers should do (including the remedy you are providing) and who consumers can contact
  • a PDF of a recall advertisement, and
  • the government agency that is the lead agency for the recall.

We will give you a copy of the notice that we propose to publish for review and nominate the date when we need a response from you. This will usually be 5 business days but could be less if there is a high risk to public safety.

If you do not respond by this date, we will likely use our authority to publish the notice on our website. Our view is that consumers should be alerted about unsafe products as quickly as possible.

If you respond by the due date but object to publication, we will consider your reasons but may still publish your recall notice on our website.

If we do not agree with your recall notice, including if we think you have understated the risk, we will ask you to amend it. If you do not agree, then we may publish your notice with our own message, for example, warning consumers that we think there is a risk of a more serious injury.

There are some cases where we will not publish a recall notice on our website. These include where:

We may:

  • share information about your recall with other product safety regulators to understand more about the risk, hazard, injuries and complaints. This may include overseas agencies in countries where the affected product is supplied.
  • use your photographs of the affected product in any media, including our social media posts, to increase awareness of the recall. This includes sharing photographs with other product safety regulators.

We may assess other aspects of your recall strategy

Our focus is on consumers being notified accurately and quickly about the recall and the steps suppliers will take to reduce harm to people.

Depending on the level of risk to public safety, we may also ask you other questions about your recall strategy, such as:

  • your assessment of the risk including the defect and failure rate
  • whether the recall is being conducted at the proper level in the supply chain
  • your instructions and support for downstream suppliers
  • how stock will be tracked in a complex supply chain, including the second-hand market
  • how you will collect, destroy, or repair the product, and how you will manage any delays
  • whether your communication strategy is suitable, including how you will reach consumer groups such as people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities
  • how you will manage consumer complaints
  • how you will monitor your recall, including reports of fatalities, serious injuries or near misses, consumer complaints and barriers, such as parts not being available or consumers not responding to your recall messages
  • your plan to further investigate the safety risk, including monitoring overseas developments.

We use our Product Safety Priorities when considering further action.

We may decide to publish a recall notice before you have your strategy finalised, especially when the risk to consumers is high, even if you have not yet decided on a suitable remedy.