[1] It was an appeal brought by ASIC against a Mr Kobelt, seeking to overturn a unanimous decision of the Full Federal Court.

[4] As the accounts were immediately reduced to zero upon payment, customers were left unable to buy food and other essentials, so Kobelt would allow them to spend up to 50% of the money deducted on any given payday; to pay for groceries at his store.

[4] The trial judge had found that Kobelt had engaged in credit activity while unlicensed, and that his conduct was unconscionable, in violation of s12CB(1) of the ASIC Act.

The Full Federal Court upheld the unlicensed credit finding, but unanimously held he had not engaged in the relevant form of unconscionable conduct.

They concluded that "The difficulty with ASIC’s system case of statutory unconscionability lies in identifying any advantage that Mr Kobelt obtained from the supply of book-up credit that can fairly be said to be against conscience.

Keane agreed with the judgement of Kiefel and Bell, and found additionally that ASIC "did not establish that the respondent exploited his customers’ socio-economic vulnerability in order to extract financial advantage from them."

He pointed out that ASIC's argument that Kobelt had a high degree of bargaining power was overstated as the customers could have decided to take collective action against him.

Nettle, Gordon, and Edelman dissented, finding that Kobelt's book-up system was unconscionable in the relevant statutory sense.