Picos v Healthengine Pty Ltd

In *Picos v Healthengine Pty Ltd*, the Federal Court of Australia considered a dispute between Ms Picos, a medical practitioner, and Healthengine Pty Ltd, a company operating a platform for booking medical appointments. Ms Picos alleged that Healthengine engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct in contravention of the *Australian Consumer Law* (ACL) by misrepresenting the nature of its services and the availability of her services to consumers. Specifically, she contended that Healthengine’s platform created the impression that it was an official booking service for her practice, when in fact it was a third-party commercial service that charged patients a fee for booking appointments.

The central legal issues before the Court were whether Healthengine’s conduct in advertising and operating its booking platform constituted misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the ACL. This involved determining whether the representations made by Healthengine, through its website and other communications, were likely to deceive or confuse consumers about the nature of the booking service, its affiliation with Ms Picos's practice, and the associated costs. The Court also had to consider whether Healthengine had contravened other provisions of the ACL relating to false or misleading representations about services.

Judge Lucev found that Healthengine's representations were indeed misleading and deceptive. The Court reasoned that the overall impression conveyed by Healthengine's platform was that it was an authorised or official booking channel for medical practitioners, including Ms Picos. The use of terms like "book an appointment" without clear disclosure of the third-party nature of the service and the potential for patient fees was deemed likely to mislead consumers into believing they were dealing directly with the medical practice or an authorised agent. The Court applied the established principles for assessing misleading or deceptive conduct, focusing on the likely effect of the representations on the target audience, which in this instance were consumers seeking medical appointments.

The Court ultimately found that Healthengine had contravened section 18 of the ACL and ordered that Healthengine pay Ms Picos’s costs.