Alan Knowsley was approached by both the Dominion Post and Radio New Zealand to provide legal commentary on the mistaken website pricing and privacy issues involving Harvey Norman.

Whether or not the retailer has to honour the prices advertised would depend on their terms of trade being clearly brought to customers attention (and/or customers agreeing to those terms). If the retailer cannot rely on its terms of trade to cancel the deals, then they would need to apply to the Court for relief under the Contractual Mistakes Act.

The privacy breach (sending customers’ email addresses to other customers) could result in damages claims but the breach is at the lower end of the scale.