The draft report of the Competition Policy Review has recommended scrapping the prohibition on price signalling in the Competition and Consumer Act (a provision which applies only to banks) and replacing it with a more general "concerted practices" provision.The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, said he was happy with this approach.The price signalling law, which was introduced in 2012, prohibits banks disclosing prices to competitors in private, where doing so is not in the ordinary course of business. It also prohibits public or private disclosure that is for the purpose of "substantially lessening competition."When the law was introduced the ACCC provided examples of the sort of conduct that would raise concern. These included a bank devising a campaign to signal its intention not to raise rates, as a way of testing competitors' willingness to do the same.In another example, a bank executive announces at an industry conference that the bank would be reluctant to lift rates beyond that of the Reserve Bank cash rate change, but if others did they would be prepared to follow.The draft report said: "In their current form the prohibitions against price signalling do not strike the right balance in distinguishing between anti-competitive behaviour and pro-competitive conduct."Being confined in the operation to a single industry (banking) the current provisions are also inconsistent with the principal that the Competition and Consumer Act should apply to all business generally."The review panel said its view was that public price disclosure could help consumers make informed choices and was unlikely to raise significant competition concerns. It said private price disclosure to a competitor would generally have more potential to harm competition, as it may be used to facilitate collusion. However, there were business circumstances in which private disclosure was necessary, particularly in connection with joint ventures or similar types of business collaboration."For that reason a per se prohibition has the potential to over-reach," the draft report said.The panel said anti-competitive price signalling did not need its own separate division in the Competition and Consumer Act. Rather, price signalling could be addressed by extending section 45 to cover concerted practices that have the purpose, or would have or be likely to have the effect, of substantially lessening competition.Sims said the ACCC was "very happy with that approach." "In Australia this is called price signalling. Internationally, the same thing is called concerted practices or facilitating practices. "Harper [Ian Harper, chairman of the Competition Policy Review panel] has suggested that an economy-wide facilitating practices law be brought in and we are pleased with that," Sims said. "Our concern was to have a law that addresses facilitating practices. We weren't hung up on the precise drafting of the law as it is now."