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another senior amcor exec goes Another senior Amcor exec goes
By Blair Speedy
07-01-2006
From: The Australian

AMCOR has shed another senior executive just weeks before the competition regulator begins prosecutions over allegations the company operated a price-fixing cartel in the cardboard box market.

Executive general manager of human resources Peter Wilson is the third senior Amcor executive to leave the company since the discovery of evidence linking it with the alleged cartel in December 2004, after which then chief executive Russell Jones and Amcor Australasia managing director Peter Sutton were sacked.
Amcor announced Mr Wilson's departure in a release to the stock exchange on December 28, the height of the holiday season, allowing it to go unnoticed by the majority of investors.

It said Mr Wilson, 53, was retiring "to pursue other non-executive interests" after more than five years with Amcor.

Mr Wilson is chairman of the Commonwealth Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission, known as Comcare, as well as serving as a director on a number of other boards.

It is understood he was instrumental in running Amcor's 2004 intellectual property lawsuit against former executives from its cardboard box division over allegations they used confidential Amcor documents to set up a rival consulting business.

Amcor secured orders in the Federal Court which allowed it to conduct raids on the homes and offices of the former executives, where evidence of Amcor's involvement in an alleged cartel were discovered.

Amcor has been granted immunity by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in return for handing over the evidence and co-operating with the regulator's investigation, but alleged co-conspirator Visy is now facing prosecution for alleged breaches of the Trade Practices Act.

The ACCC last month filed a statement of claim in the Federal Court alleging Visy chairman Richard Pratt, chief executive Harry Debney and former Visy Board general manager Rod Carroll had colluded with Amcor to fix prices in the $1.8 billion cardboard box market.

Some of Australia's largest companies including Foster's, Lion Nathan, Coca-Cola Amatil, Goodman Fielder and Nestle Australia were allegedly victims of the arrangement.

Mr Pratt and Mr Debney have both denied the allegations. Mr Carroll has made no comment.

None of the respondents has yet filed a defence to the case, which will first come before the court in a directions hearing scheduled for February 10.