Maximillion:

"Please explain the 'very strange, that'."

The whole ACCC-Amcor-Visy saga is strange.

An article headed 'ANZ director defends payments' published on 22 November 2007 in the Business Spectator, here: http://eureka03.eurekareport.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/ANZ-director-defends-payments-96RKQ?OpenDocument , stated, inter alia, the following:

"In a 1996 letter to Amcor, Mr Hancock [a former, until 1993, senior Visy executive] sought compensation for unpaid paper rebates and indicated that the rebates were part of a wider collusive arrangement between Amcor and Visy, ...

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigated Mr Hancock's allegations at the time and took no action."

The article '$1.5bn in cartel fix since '89: Visy exec' of 13 October 2007 in The Australian: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22576744-643,00.html says:

"A former senior Visy executive has accused packaging magnate Richard Pratt of funding his offshore expansion with $1.5 billion of super-profits from a cardboard box industry cartel dating back to the late 1980s. Alan Hancock, ............ said the benefits of the cartel began to flow into Mr Pratt's coffers in 1989."

What if the ACCC, in or shortly after 1996, contrary to the report in the Business Spectator quoted above, in fact continued an investigation undercover within Amcor to gather evidence against Visy? Would that not have constituted an entrapment scenario, especially if it was arguable that Visy was likely the underdog in any such cartel situation? This seems to be a view supported by the Mallesons Stephen Jacques commentary:

"The defence also called into question the ACCC’s ..................... willingness to overlook Amcor’s role in the cartel. As the defence put it, “as soon as Jones came in and at the first mention of Visy and Pratt, all the light bulbs went on and … the decision was … made, let’s go get him”. In doing so, the ACCC had abused its own process and guidelines which indicate leniency would not be available to a cartel ringleader."

Had Richard Pratt been a target since 1989?

TBC

Continued

Hang about a bit. Alan Hancock had left Visy in 1993. For Alan Hancock to have demanded, and received, payment from Amcor in 1996 for unpaid paper rebates indicated as being due under collusive agreements involving Amcor and Visy, must mean that he was involved with a SEPARATE business entity to those of Amcor and Visy that was ALSO part of the cartel arrangements. That would make Alan Hancock, or the business entity with which he was associated, the whistleblower.

Under the ACCC's own guidelines, it would have been Alan Hancock's business entity that qualified for immunity! Amcor and Visy BOTH would have been left to face the music was sufficient evidence to have been gathered subsequently for a successful prosecution for cartel conduct.

Could it have been considered by some in 1996 that Alan Hancock was not a big enough loser to be deserving of immunity? That an immunity for the first whistleblower in respect to the very cartel conduct the ACCC now contends to be proven, would in effect be 'wasted' on such small fry? That an immunity, if only it could be somehow conferred upon Amcor, would enable a no-holds-barred pursuit of Visy and Richard Pratt, whilst preserving that significant public company from penalty?

Should such a scenario have in fact applied, would it not have amounted to selective application of the law by the ACCC, to Amcor's great advantage, and Visy's great disadvantage? With Amcor immune, why have not charges been laid against Hancock by the ACCC? The documented payments made to him in 1996 for rebates due under collusive arrangements in what the ACCC contends is now a proven case of cartel conduct seemingly must involve Hancock as a party to the cartel. Failure to charge him seems equally selective an application of the law.

At this point, for the purposes of our 'test conspiracy', Maximillion, it should be evident that if there was to have been a conspiracy to preserve Amcor from prosecution, only a very small number of persons need have been in on it.

TBC

I would need to accept a premise of malice in the ACCC to go with this scenario, possible, but not likely, to me anyway.
Perhaps it's more down to a comfortable, "Sir Humphrey Applegate" level of bureaucratic incompetence, that would seem far more likely.
That, and budgetary restraints.
It's entirely likely, to me, that there was a level of collusion in the final outcome, it's the way such cases are handled these days regularly, but as to an overarching conspiracy, however small?
Possible, but not likely.
I may well be wrong, but if so, it's also unlikely we'll ever find out, isn't it?

Continued

Revisiting the quotation from the Mallesons Stephen Jacques commentary on this prosecution, in my post of Wednesday, 1 April 2009 at 9:30:21 AM, assuming the (Pratt) defence account contained therein to be accurate, an explanation exists for the speed with which "all the light bulbs went on and … the decision was … made, let’s go get him", meaning Pratt. That explanation could be that the ACCC was expecting to be possibly contacted by representatives of Amcor because the ACCC knew from an ongoing investigation that Amcor might shortly see it had good cause to do so.

Indeed, the threat by the ACCC to Amcor, made immediately upon Amcor's confession, that Amcor's claim to immunity may be compromised should it inform ASX that it had discovered its own involvement in a cartel, could be taken as indicating that there had in fact been an ACCC investigation in progress at the time Amcor made its confession. That extraordinary attempt by the ACCC to deflect Amcor from discharging its obligation to inform ASX could also be taken as indicating that the ACCC knew, at the time of Amcor's confession, it still did not have enough evidence of cartel conduct by Visy to sustain a conviction in Visy's case.

All of which, to my mind, raises questions as to the propriety with which the ACCC may have been conducting any ongoing investigation, and indeed as to its failure to have taken action over Alan Hancock's 1996 allegations and the implications of his having received payment of outstanding rebates due under a collusive arrangement involving Amcor and Visy back then.

There exists the appearance that the damage alleged to have been done to customers as a consequence of the existence of the cartel between 1999 and 2004 only happened because the ACCC took no action in 1996.

Of course, had the ACCC acted in 1996, it appears Alan Hancock was the person entitled to immunity, and Amcor would have been a co-defendant with Visy. Large institutional investors in Amcor may have faced losses.

Conspiracy motivation?

TBC

Maximillion, Thursday, 2 April 2009 7:19:32 PM:

"It's entirely likely, to me, that there was a level of collusion in the final outcome [of the ACCC Amcor - Visy cartel prosecution], it's the way such cases are handled these days regularly, but as to an overarching conspiracy, however small?
Possible, but not likely.
I may well be wrong, but if so, it's also unlikely we'll ever find out, isn't it?"

I wasn't trying to dodge your question when I posted my continuation post on Sunday 5 April.

Perhaps one of the reasons it may be "unlikely we'll ever find out" with respect to so many suspected cases of malicious prosecution, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, or simply denial of natural justice, is that those who start querying outcomes seem all too frequently to be shouted down at the outset with cries like the epithet 'conspiracy theorist'.

I believe much of the blame for this being the situation can be laid at the feet of those who promote 'political correctness', who continually push a 'received wisdom', who wish to entrust an electorally unaccountable elite group of so-called experts to do the community's thinking for it. I come back to Divorce Doctor's post in which he said:

"Politically Correct people ... have [as] their greatest fear that they might be forced to THINK, and God Forbid, DO something about it ... [and] use the derogatory term CT ... to simply "get with the strength", ..."

BTW Divorce Doctor,

Further to your post of Thursday, 26 March 2009 at 7:12:02 PM, I tried to find the topic 'We can't afford to pay the Old Age Pension' on familylawwebguide.com via a Google search, in order to assess whether this topic on OLO may have been intended as any kind of 'dog whistle'. I could not find it, due to my unfamiliarity with that other forum. Can you post a link of the type that will come up in an OLO post in gamboge text that will go direct to that discussion?