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Vodafone Infinite case costs Optus

Optus has been stuck with Vodafone's court costs after bringing a case against the mobile telco accusing it of misleading advertisements.
Written by Suzanne Tindal, Contributor

Optus has been stuck with Vodafone's court costs after bringing a case against the mobile telco accusing it of misleading advertisements.

Optus claimed that the TV and print advertisements for Vodafone's "Infinite" mobile phone plans were misleading because Vodafone didn't make it clear that certain calls, texts and access to social network websites were not covered by the "Infinite" plan.

However, Optus didn't have any luck with the court, failing to convince Justice Arthur Emmett to have Vodafone's ads removed from circulation. Vodafone has, however, signed an undertaking to update the print advertisements to make the exceptions clearer.

Optus decided to discontinue the proceedings.

"After Optus' initial interlocutory injunction against Vodafone's Infinite marketing and advertising was unsuccessful, Optus withdrew its claims on Friday and agreed to pay Vodafone's costs in regard to those proceedings," Vodafone said in a statement.

Optus said that it had brought the case against Vodafone because it had concerns about the transparency of the "Infinite" plan advertising, and that it had dropped the case because it had achieved a result.

"Optus' action led Vodafone to update their advertising and as such we decided to drop the case," it said.

Optus said that it would pay the costs, which are yet to be determined, as ordered by the court.

Optus has itself been to court for misleading advertisements, after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) initiated action against it last year.

The commission took the telco to the Federal Court over the advertising for "unlimited broadband" plans with caps of 15GB and 30GB, where the download speed would be reduced to 256 kilobits per second once the cap was exceeded.

Justice Anthony North ruled that Optus had breached the Trade Practices Act in failing to sufficiently and prominently disclose that the download speed would be throttled.

The telco also copped a three-year ban from the Federal Court over misleading advertising for its "Think Bigger" and "Supersonic" broadband advertising campaigns that failed to sufficiently disclose that download speeds would be capped when the data limit was exceeded.

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