The case was won by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission who, in late 2015, began prosecuting Acquire for false, misleading and unconscionable conduct between July 2014 and March 2015. Acquire has been forced to pay $100 000 to go towards the ACCC's legal costs and will undertake a compliance program. Justice Murphy said during July 2014 and March 2015, Acquire Learning employed sales staff, "misleadingly called career advisors", who used personal job seeker information bought by the company or gathered from their own recruitment businesses which had job boards, to make unsolicited marketing calls and aggressively sell courses to them. The courses were run by training colleges who paid Acquire Learning a fee. The aim was to enrol the job seekers on the spot, and sign them up to the Commonwealth Government's now-scrapped VET FEE-HELP scheme, which saw job seekers incur debts that ranged between $9,900 and $21,000 after the student started earning a salary of over $53,000. "I consider Acquire's motive was not, as it pretended, to help job seekers out of the unemployment queue and into employment, but to maximise its profits through fees it received from course providers," Justice Murphy said.

"In my opinion, Acquire took advantage of vulnerable unemployed job seekers in order to rort the VET FEE-HELP scheme and its conduct was disgraceful. "Ultimately, Acquire received significant fees and the burden of its conduct was most likely shared between such job seekers and the Australian taxpayer." Tip jar below Justice Murphy said the company's so-called career advisors called and sold courses to job seekers who disclosed that they had a learning disability, mental illness, or had not finished school.

The company told a 19-year-old job seeker who said she had a learning problem and mental illness that the course was "perfect for people like you" and that students in the course "cannot fail". One job seeker targeted by the company had difficulty speaking and understanding English. "Notwisthanding this, Acquire induced them to enrol on the spot in a course which they were unlikely to be able to complete and/or which was unlikely to assist them to obtain better employment than if they had not enrolled." The career advisers were provided with a script for the telemarketing calls and trained to "book the maximum amount of enrolments possible". The advisers used "high-pressure and unfair sales techniques" to enrol job seekers on the spot. A broker told one job seeker the company was offering them an "opportunity .... in regard to potential employment". The caller said they were given the job seeker's details by a job advertiser who asked them to "help [her] out", and offered up a free iPad while directing her to fill out an application form online.

Acquire admitted it contravened the law in relation to telemarketing calls to eight unemployed job seekers, but admitted the conduct was "not that of rogue employees and was a core part of its business model". Justice Murphy said these eight instances "were not isolated examples". Acquire admitted it used "undue pressure, unfair sales tactics" and that it misled the job applicants by falsely claiming the reason for the call was to find them a job, or that the job seeker had been "chosen" for the offer. The company admitted that it did not provide an opportunity for job seekers to consider the suitability of the course, nor did it disclose the details about their debt to the Commonwealth. The federal government cracked down on the marketing of vocational education last year, and new laws starting on January 1 limited the cost of courses to between $5000 and $15,000. In April, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, which regulates the training industry, targeted Acquire Learning's training colleges. It deregistered Asia Pacific Training Institute, and restricted courses at Franklyn Scholar, after audits were commissioned following complaints. Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham welcomed the Federal Court's judgment.

"Dodgy providers are on notice – the Turnbull Government and regulators are backing students and shutting unscrupulous training providers out of the system." The ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said the $4.5 million fine imposed by the court was the ACCC's "second largest consumer protection penalty".