News

Amcor has been accused of conspiring with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to prosecute rival, Visy owner Richard Pratt.

Visy, the packaging, paper and recycling company, was fined £15.3m for price fixing by the ACCC in November 2007 based on information provided by Amcor three years ago.

Amcor was subsequently granted immunity and co-operated with the ACCC, but Pratt's barrister Robert Richter made the conspiracy claim against Amcor today (27 August) in a Melbourne court.

Pratt is accused of misleading the ACCC when he denied in 2005 that a price fixing agreement existed between Visy and Amcor.

The Sydney Morning Herald said the claim had been strongly denied by Amcor.

Amcor was unavailable for comment.

Richter argued that the defence should have access to some of the 66,000 pages of documents relating to Amcor and rejected Amcor's claim that the documents had little to do with the defence case.

Amcor's lawyers said the company was not part of a conspiracy and rejected the allegations.

Pratt, chairman of Visy Industries, faces up to four years in prison if convicted.