The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) welcomes the judgment handed down by the Federal Court of Australia on 31 March 2025 in relation to a case brought against digital marketing company V Marketing Australia Pty Ltd (in liquidation) (V Marketing) and others.
The Federal Court imposed penalties totalling $1,500,000 against V Marketing, as well as ordering its sole director, Mr Michael Vazquez, to pay a penalty of $60,000.
In April 2019 the ACMA filed proceedings in the Federal Court against V Marketing and the company for which it was acting, solar energy business Balaska Pty Ltd (Balaska), for alleged breaches of telemarketing laws. The ACMA alleged that V Marketing made telemarketing calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Register on behalf of Balaska, and subsequently on its own behalf.
The Do Not Call Register is an important consumer safeguard that allows Australians to opt out of telemarketing calls. There are currently 12.6 million numbers on the Do Not Call Register.
The judgment today finds that during the period 1 March 2017 to 30 September 2017, V Marketing made 553,630 telemarketing calls on behalf of Balaska to numbers on the Do Not Call Register, and that V Marketing also made 548,688 calls to the Register on behalf of its own solar company, Your Choice Solar, from 1 February 2018 to 27 September 2018.
Solar telemarketing was a compliance and enforcement priority for the ACMA at the time of the action due to the level of consumer concern about the activity.
The Federal Court declared that Balaska itself had contravened subsection 11(1) of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth.) by causing the first tranche of telemarketing calls to be made by V Marketing on behalf of Balaska, but did not order Balaska to pay any civil penalty.
In handing down judgment, Justice Logan stated that there was no culture of compliance with the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 within V Marketing, despite its being ’put on notice’ more than once via ACMA-issued compliance alerts that were sent to Balaska and passed on by Balaska to V Marketing.
Justice Logan stated that due to the public interest involved, a price needed to be put on the contravening conduct which was sufficiently high to be more than just a cost of conducting a telemarketing business. Justice Logan also stated that the ‘contracting out’ of telemarketing by one company to another does not ‘contract out’ the risk of potentially significant penalties for breaches of the law.
Further information about the ACMA’s approach to spam and telemarketing compliance and enforcement, and recent enforcement actions is available on our website.