Fuel supplier Caltex Australia has defended the use of a website which lists petrol pump prices every 15 minutes, saying it promotes competition.
Australia's consumer watchdog has launched a case against Caltex and four other major petrol retailers in the Federal Court alleging they have breached Australian consumer law.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is concerned about an increase in retail petrol price co-ordination and co-operation.
It says Caltex, BP and the fuel-selling arms of Coles, Woolworths and 7-Eleven have used their membership of the Informed Sources website to watch their competitors' fuel prices.
But Caltex plans to defend any claim.
Managing director Julian Segal said fuel prices were driven by competitive information.
"The current mechanism as provided by Informed Sources is a very efficient way of maintaining our competitiveness and maintaining competition within the industry," Mr Segal said.
"The current system enables the industry to be as competitive as possible and to react in the fastest possible way to competitive forces.
"It's all available to anyone."
But he said it was difficult to know whether petrol prices would rise if the ACCC successfully stopped the price information sharing.
Informed Sources plans to defend the ACCC's action, saying an earlier ACCC examination found no illegality.
The ACCC says a net petrol price increase of one cent per litre over a year represents a loss to Australian consumers of about $190 million.
On Monday, Caltex announced it will cut 350 jobs over the next 12 months as part of a company-wide restructure and revealed first half net profit increased by one per cent to $173 million.
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