174 The dispute between the parties concerning the operation of this provision upon the infringement notice issued to X Corp comprised two issues. First, there was a dispute as to whether the infringement notice identified the place of each contravention to which the notice related. Secondly, there was a dispute as to whether any failure to identify the place of each contravention would invalidate the infringement notice.
175 On this topic, I understood X Corp to submit that the infringement notice did not comply with s 104(1)(e)(iii) because it did not state the place of the contraventions. Although this was not the subject of detailed submissions, I understood X Corp's position to be that the "place" of the contravention is the geographical place where the conduct constituting the contravention occurred.
176 The Commissioner submitted that the infringement notice identified the place of the contraventions by identifying the report that X Corp gave in response to the reporting notice issued to Twitter Inc. A starting point of the Commissioner's submission was that the word "place" is a broad word, which is used to ensure that the person who receives an infringement notice is able to identify what contravention is being addressed. Senior counsel for the Commissioner submitted that the relevant contraventions in this case occurred in a document, being the report given to the Commissioner, and that where the report was sent from or where it was received had no significance to the contraventions. On this basis, senior counsel submitted that, in this case, "the place of the contravention is the report" because that was "where the contravention happened". Since the infringement notice identified the report with sufficient precision, it followed on this submission that the infringement notice complied with the requirements of s 104(1)(e)(iii).
177 I do not accept the Commissioner's submissions on this first topic.
178 Importantly, I did not understand the Commissioner to submit that s 104(1)(e)(iii) only requires the "place" of the contravention to be identified in an infringement notice in some circumstances. Rather, I understood the Commissioner to accept that s 104(1)(e)(iii) requires the "place" to be identified irrespective of the contravention alleged (subject to the issue of what the consequences of non-compliance with this statutory requirement are to the validity of the infringement notice).
179 I do not accept that the infringement notice in this case identified the place of the contraventions alleged. Section 104(1)(e) calls for "brief details of the alleged contravention, or each alleged
