Sunday 26 March 2017

Privately run vocational training 'colleges' - what could possibly go wrong?


In the original version of this blog post North Coast Voices had published an excerpt from one of The Age's online articles of 13 March 2017. The excerpt and associated comment has been removed.

AMENDED & UPDATED POST 

In November 2015 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Commonwealth of Australia commenced proceedings against Phoenix Institute of Australia Pty Ltd and Community Training Initiatives Pty Ltd, associated entities of Australian Careers Network Limited, seeking declarations, pecuniary penalties, refunds and other orders in respect of alleged contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth).

This court case appears to be ongoing.

On 13 March 2017 The Age reported on a defamation action, Charan v Nationwide News [2017] VSC 66 (21 February 2017)

Since then Fairfax Media has been forced to issue a public apology:
Since 13 March 2017, Fairfax Media has published an article on its website regarding the defamation proceedings that Atkinson Prakash Charan has taken against the publisher of The Australian newspaper seeking damages for defamation.
Fairfax Media acknowledges that Mr Charan ceased to be a director of Australian Careers Network Limited on 30 September 2014 and was not involved in the management of the company since that date.  To the degree that the subject article was not a fair and accurate report of court proceedings, Fairfax Media apologises to Mr Charan.  A donation has been made to the Charan Foundation.

The Australian had previously apologised on 20 November 2015:

An earlier version of this article inadvertently named Atkinson ­Prakash Charan as part of ACN’s current management. Mr Charan, in fact, left ACN late last year and has no ongoing role in the company. The Australian apologises to Mr Charan for the error.

The defamation case against Nationwide News does not appear to have a final judgment published yet.

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