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was to make the former submission then it should be rejected. If the policy involved contravening conduct by representations 1, 4, 5, and 7 until 2 June 2015 then those contraventions would not be retrospectively extinguished by a subsequent change in Valve's terms and conditions, policy, and approach by its support representatives.
232 Valve also submitted that the SSA representations and the Steam Refund Policy representations would not have been understood by any consumer as making any representation concerning Australian legislation affecting their contractual rights. As I explain below, although the reasonable consumer would appreciate that the terms and conditions were directed to customers all over the world, the terms and conditions in the SSAs and the 2011–2013 and 2013–2014 Steam Refund policies (which also referred to those terms) were expressed in absolute terms. Those terms would have been consulted by a consumer wishing to know if he or she could obtain a refund. They conveyed the representation that no refunds would be, or were required to be, made in any location in the world. The 2012/2013 SSA and the 2013 SSA both also provided for a specific exception for customers in EU countries which further emphasises the unlimited geographic scope that the representations otherwise had.
The SSA representations
233 As I have explained, the three SSAs relevant to these proceedings were as follows: (1) the 2011/2012 SSA (1 January 2011 to 2 August 2012); (2) the 2012/2013 SSA (3 August 2012 to 2 July 2013); and the 2013 SSA (3 July 2013 to 10 November 2014).
234 The representations in the three SSAs were relied upon by the ACCC as having been made to Australian consumers (i) who accessed the SSAs on the Steam website (including consumers who did so to set up an account or purchase a computer game on the website), or (ii) who accessed the SSAs through the Steam Client (such as when setting up a Steam account or purchasing a computer game).
235 Valve correctly submitted that the mode in which an Australian consumer accessed the SSAs could not change the content of the representation. On the evidence before the Court, it might be inferred that very few of the many consumers who accessed the SSAs would have read them. The three consumers who gave evidence in these proceedings all insisted, to different degrees, upon rights to a refund. But none of those consumers made any reference to any terms of an SSA in any correspondence with Steam representatives. It appears that only Mr
