Just a few months back during March 2016, the gaming giant, Valve Corporation, was found out to be guilty as per laws dictated by the Australian Federal Court of breaching the Australian consumer law because of its long-running severe lack of a refund policy.
Charges had been filed against Counter-strike and Left 4 Dead developer by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) all the way back in 2014, these charges included the claim that the company has misled Australian consumers in its rather ambiguous Steam Subscriber Agreement and the two versions of its lengthy Steam Refund Policy.
Australian customers of Valve’s products have a legal right to asking for a refund in the case that they have been sold a faulty or damaged product, and for as long as they’ve been present in Australia, Valve has not honored this right as per court’s standards.
Valve’s main defence was focused around the fact that it hasn’t officially operated its business in Australia instead it conducts all of its business over in Seattle and simply put that it doesn’t restrict Australians’ any access to the service. However, in a sad turn of events for Valve, the court did not agree.
The residing council for ACCC, Naomi Sharp made the argument that Valve should be fined about $3 million “in order to achieve both specific and general deterrents, and also because of the serious nature of the conduct,” reports Kotaku Australia today.
When Valve was directly queried regarding whether they would be resisting any penalties that would be handed down by the Australian court, Valves head attorney mentioned that they had “no instructions that Valve at this time will resist the enforcement overseas of any of your Honour’s orders.”
The current domestic Justice Edelman had informed the court that a final ruling on all the penalties and any potential injunction would be rolled out by mid-December, or maybe even January.
