The federal court in Australia imposed a fine of $3,000,000 AUD (approximately $2.2 million) on Valve after ruling that they violated the consumer protection law by not offering refunds between 2011 and 2014. This is the maximum fine ordered by the regulation institute Of Australian competition, and is 12 times more than Valve suggested it should pay.
Australian federal court fined Valve $2.2 million for failing to offer refunds to Australian consumers between 2011 and 2014.
The problem is that when in 2011 Steam began operations in Australia, Valve did not seek legal advice to ensure compliance with local laws. That attitude did not please judge James Edelman, who decided to punish Valve with this huge fine.
“Valve had a culture by which it formed a view without Australian legal advice that it was not subject to Australian law, and it was content to proceed to trade with Australian consumers without that advice and with the view that even if advice had been obtained that Valve was required to comply with Australian law the advice might have been ignored,” notes the judgement.
As you know, Valve implemented the system of international reimbursements of Steam in mid-2015. Thanks to that, players who acquire a title can request a refund for several reasons, as long as they meet certain requirements.
In related information, Steam servers today had problems for several hours, but fortunately everything went back to normal. On the other hand, The winter sale has arrived at the store of Valve, will you buy something?
