The ACCC has launched Federal Court action against homewares retailer Dusk over the sale of more than 66,000 products allegedly failing to meet mandatory button battery safety standards.

The competition regulator alleges Dusk Australasia, a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Dusk Group, supplied 66,453 products across 29 product lines between May 2023 and December 2024.

The products included candles, diffusers, tealights, snow globes and other LED homewares, including Christmas, Easter and Halloween-themed items that the ACCC said could be particularly attractive to young children.

Of the 29 product lines, the ACCC alleges 25 were not tested for compliance before being offered or supplied to consumers, as required under Australia’s mandatory button battery safety standard.

Dusk later obtained testing showing the products passed the relevant safety requirements, but the testing was not completed before the products went on sale.

A further four product lines allegedly failed to include mandatory warnings informing customers that the products contained button batteries.

“Button batteries can cause catastrophic injuries or death if swallowed by young children, so it is crucial that businesses take their product safety obligations seriously,” ACCC deputy chair Catriona Lowe said.

The regulator has also alleged Dusk breached a court-enforceable undertaking it provided in April 2023 after previously supplying Halloween-themed novelty products that failed to comply with button battery standards.

At the time, Dusk paid $106,560 in penalties following eight ACCC infringement notices.

“We are extremely concerned as Dusk allegedly supplied tens of thousands of products that did not comply with button battery standards designed to protect young children who are most at risk of serious injury, despite having previously given an undertaking to the ACCC that it would not do so,” Lowe said.

Four Christmas candle lines included in the proceedings were withdrawn from sale in December 2024 and subsequently recalled.

The ACCC is seeking penalties, costs, declarations and an order requiring Dusk to surrender any financial benefit obtained through the alleged breaches.

Dusk operates about 150 stores across Australia, along with two online stores.