The short answer
A code could subtract ten per cent at checkout while still misleading customers about the saving. That distinction explains the Federal Court’s 2020 ruling on Kogan Australia’s TAXTIME promotion. The chronology separates the 2018 advertising, the regulator’s allegations, the liability finding and the later civil penalty, without turning a corporate case into a personal criminal conviction.
Chronology
A timeline of the turning points
TAXTIME advertised
The code is promoted on the website, by email and by SMS.
Proceedings announced
The ACCC alleges misleading price representations; allegations are not yet findings.
Liability finding
The Federal Court finds the promotion false or misleading; relief remains for a later hearing.
Penalty and costs
The court orders Kogan Australia to pay A$350,000 and the regulator’s costs.
The question concerned a genuine saving, not just subtraction
The promotion invited customers to enter TAXTIME for a ten-per-cent reduction at checkout. The ACCC’s later account of the finding describes prices raised immediately before the promotion and reduced again afterwards. The percentage calculation alone did not establish that a buyer was obtaining the represented saving.
For illustration, raising a price from A$100 to A$110 and then subtracting ten per cent produces A$99. That is a ten-per-cent reduction from A$110, but only one per cent below A$100. This arithmetic is an explanatory example, not a claimed price history of a particular item in the case. The relevant comparison depends on what the promotion conveys about its starting price.
Sources for this section: [2]
Website, emails and urgency formed part of the presentation
The regulator’s May 2019 announcement identifies the four-day June 2018 period and distribution through the website, emails and text messages. It also describes time-limited wording towards the end of the offer. The campaign reached people through several channels rather than only a checkout screen.
That sequence matters because an invitation to act before an offer expires can reinforce a customer’s understanding of a special saving. A retailer’s ability to change prices does not by itself establish what buyers reasonably understand from the surrounding advertisement. At the proceedings stage these were the regulator’s allegations; the later finding supplies a different evidential status.
Sources for this section: [1]
The July finding and December penalty were separate decisions
On 17 July 2020 the regulator reported the Federal Court’s finding that Kogan Australia had breached the Australian Consumer Law. The affected products were a subset of the range. The finding should not be inflated into a conclusion that every Kogan product, every sale or all dynamic pricing was unlawful.
The December account identifies 621 affected products and the A$350,000 penalty. It also records an order for the regulator’s costs. ABC independently reported the finding and costs. The delay between liability and penalty therefore does not imply that the July case had failed or that the December amount was a new allegation unrelated to the earlier promotion.
A penalty sought by a party is not the court’s order
AAP’s contemporaneous report says the ACCC sought A$2 million while the company proposed A$150,000. Justice Jennifer Davies accepted neither amount. The actual A$350,000 order must be distinguished from submissions made during argument.
The report also describes the later promotional wording and disclaimer discussed at the penalty stage. That was part of assessing the case, not permission for an editor to invent additional contraventions. The material reviewed establishes the dated 2020 finding and penalty; it does not establish a subsequent appellate decision, and no appeal outcome is supplied here.
The named company and other enforcement matters must stay distinct
The respondent was Kogan Australia Pty Ltd, identified by the regulator as a subsidiary of the listed group. The civil penalty was not a personal criminal conviction of Ruslan Kogan. His association with the brand explains its biographical relevance, but does not change the party against which the orders were made.
An earlier Father’s Day infringement notice and the later unsubscribe matter were separate processes. The ACCC explicitly says payment of an infringement notice is not an admission of a contravention. ACMA’s 2021 payment and commitments concerned spam rules. Keeping these categories apart allows a critical account without merging allegations, notices, civil findings and criminal guilt.
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Connected biographies
The founder, distinct from the corporate respondent
Born 1982
Ruslan Kogan
Kogan.com founder and chief executiveRuslan Kogan founded an online consumer-electronics business in 2006 after studying business systems and working in technology and consulting. Its growth involved David Shafer, a widening product range, acquired digital brands and a public listing. Pricing and unsubscribe enforcement are material to the company’s history, alongside the founder’s account of migration and commercial opportunity.Read biographyQuick answers
Common questions
- When was the TAXTIME promotion?
- It ran from 27 to 30 June 2018. Proceedings were announced in May 2019 and the relevant findings and penalty followed in 2020.
- Why could a real checkout reduction still mislead?
- A percentage reduction from a newly increased price does not necessarily deliver the genuine saving conveyed by the overall advertisement.
- Was the penalty A$2 million?
- No. That was the amount sought by the ACCC. The court ordered A$350,000, plus the regulator’s costs.
- Did the court convict the founder personally?
- No. These were civil findings and orders against Kogan Australia Pty Ltd, not a personal criminal conviction of Ruslan Kogan.
Primary and institutional sources
How this history was checked
The ACCC’s original allegation announcement, liability report and penalty report are distinct dated records. AAP and ABC corroborate the penalty and differentiate party submissions from orders. The arithmetic is an original illustration, not invented evidence from the case. Official judgment pages were unavailable, so no complete reasons or unverified appellate outcome is claimed. This is a historical explanation, not current legal or investment advice. This article was reviewed on 24 October 2026.
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission23 May 2019: proceedings begin over the June 2018 TAXTIME promotion
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission17 July 2020: Federal Court finds the tax-time representations misleading
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission7 December 2020: A$350,000 penalty and costs against Kogan Australia
- Karen Sweeney / Australian Associated Press, The New Daily7 December 2020: penalty submissions and Justice Davies’s decision
- ABC News7 December 2020: selected Kogan court-penalty report, not market recommendations
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission18 January 2016: infringement notices, not an admission of contravention
- Australian Communications and Media AuthorityJanuary–March 2021: unsubscribe investigation, payment and enforceable commitments
- Kogan Technologies / Wikimedia CommonsRuslan Kogan CEO Kogan Technologies.jpg: full company-supplied photograph
- KoganTech / FlickrRuslan Kogan: exact originating photograph and CC BY 2.0 grant
- Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic licence