Price-fixing offenders are being penalised less today than they were in the last decade, suggesting ambivalence on the government’s part, according to a report in today’s Australian Financial Review (AFR), based on information gathered from an academic at Melbourne University.
The average penalty for price-fixing from 2000 to 2007 was $52,543, with the maximum penalty resting at $500,000. From 1993 to 1999 however, the median penalty was $72,196, according to Melbourne University academic, Caron Beaton-Wells. <\/P>
Beaton-Wells says her findings represent ambivalence from government, businesses and courts regarding the seriousness of the offence, and sends doubt on the willingness of judges to incarcerate price-fixers if the government makes cartels a criminal offence, as promised in 2005.<\/P>
“Overall there is a low level of support in Australia for treating serious cartel conduct as crime, or at least that such support should not be taken for granted,” Beaton-Wells told the AFR.<\/P>
This news comes in the midst of a landmark price-fixing case against packaging company Visy, which could see the company and its head, Richard Pratt, fined a record $36 million.<\/P>
According to Beaton-Wells, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is more than willing to roll Pratt’s penalty into the company’s, rather than prosecuting him separately as is the case with certain other price-fixing cases such as the case against former Topfield-distributor, Digital Products Group, and its director Jai Kemp, who were ordered to pay $238,000 and $42,000 respectively.<\/P>
Two other Visy executives could be penalised separately to the tune of $2 million combined.<\/P>
Family First leader Steve Fielding said separately yesterday that individual executives who perform price-fixing should be jailed up to 10 years due to the seriousness of the crime, which is twice the amount proposed by the Government, said the AFR.<\/P>
“Price fixing is fraud, it is theft, and the punishment must fit the crime,” he told the AFR.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Price-fixing offenders are being penalised less today than they were in the last decade, suggesting ambivalence on the government’s part, according to a report in today’s Australian Financial Review (AFR), based on information gathered from an academic at Melbourne University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-archive","category-retail","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"yoast_head":"\n