Australian watchdog raids petrol giants after anonymous letter

An anonymous letter typed on lime green paper was responsible for sparking Australia's largest corporate raid by the competition watchdog on petrol giants. Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigators began sifting through documents seized during raids on Caltex, Shell, Mobil and independent oil companies, looking for evidence of price collusion.
The raids were carried out on the offices of the oil companies in Sydney, Newcastle and Melbourne. They followed a tip-off by a whistleblower. ACCC chairman Professor Allan Fels said a woman had sent an anonymous letter to the commission in December last year detailing price collusion.

In an attempt to find the woman, the ACCC placed ads in the newspaper, and she responded with more information. "We would have preferred even more than what we got," Professor Fels told. "But she has provided us back-up to a couple of letters, a few documents which, unless they are a compete fabrication, and we don't believe that's at all likely,would indicate that there are some questions for oil companies to answer as to possible communications between them concerning some price rises."
He said the woman's husband did contact the ACCC. Professor Fels said 90 ACCC staff, lawyers, investigators and information technology experts were involved in the raids. He said the ACCC did not yet have proof of illegal activities.
"The commission has formed the belief that there may have been a breach of the Trade Practices Act, or breaches," Dr Fels said. "We're looking for evidence of communications between the oil companies and there is at least one suggesting that may be the case."

ACCC's NSW regional director Rose Webb said the whistleblower's first point of contact was a neatly typed letter on lime green paper. "We obviously checked out all the information that she included in her letter and it did seem to all add up in terms of the name and people that she mentioned and details she had given," she told. "It was clear that she was an insider in the company and she had details of documents that existed in the company and she later did provide us with some documents."
Motoring organisations had complained of price hikes over the Easter holiday period. Professor Fels said the ACCC was likely to use its powers to interview witnesses and it would take weeks to look at the evidence. "It is likely that there will be a follow-up in terms of using our powers to cross examine witnesses from oil companies and so on," he told.

The Australian Institute of Petroleum said the petroleum industry was the most investigated industry in the country.
"We're probably the most overexposed, investigated industry in Australia and that's quite factual," AIP executive director Brian Nye said. "And there's never been any grounds to do anything about it."
Mr Nye did not want to comment on the actual investigation, saying it was a matter between the individual companies and the ACCC. "There's no proof yet, it's just an accusation at the current time and there's been many of those," he said. "(ACCC chairman Professor Allan) Fels is yet to find any evidence over the last six years."