Three years after its court win against Visy Industries, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has won another victory against the paper products sector, with the Federal Court handing down $4.2 million in penalties to two foreign companies that run a price fixing “club” in Asia.
Federal Court judge Justice Annabelle Bennett found Singaporean company Asia Pulp & Paper Co Ltd and Indonesia’s PT Indah Kiat Pulp and Paper were part of a group of competitors called the Triple A Club, which held meetings to fix the prices of paper across the region, including Australia.
Bennett found the “AAA Club meetings involved systematic, sophisticated and long-running cartel arrangements between the participants” and said “the cartel participants were seeking to achieve stability in pricing by avoiding competition among themselves”.
She ordered the Singaporean company to pay a penalty of $3.4 million, with the Indonesian firm, Indah Kiat, was ordered to pay $800,000.
Outgoing ACCC chief Graeme Samuel said the penalties showed the ACCC was willing to chase cartels operators outside of Australia where necessary.
“This matter illustrates how the ACCC will pursue cartel arrangements made overseas by foreign corporations that affect Australian prices and consumers,” he said in a statement.
This is the third prosecution the ACCC has made over the photocopying paper price fixers.
In January 2010, the Federal Court ordered another Singaporean company, APRIL Fine Paper Trading Pte Ltd, and its Australian marketing arm, to pay $4 million in penalties for their involvement in the AAA Club and $250,000 towards the ACCC’s costs.
Asia Pulp & Paper and Indah Kiat were also ordered to pay $300,000 towards the ACCC’s costs.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
