Two members of the Obeid family are facing legal action over the alleged rigging of the tender process for the Mount Penny coal exploration licence in NSW's upper Hunter region.
Moses and Paul Obeid, sons of former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid, and three prominent businessmen are the target of civil proceedings launched by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in the Federal Court.
The action follows findings by the ICAC corruption watchdog in 2013 that the process to grant exploration licences for the Mount Penny and Glendon Brook coal tenements in the Bylong Valley, where the Obeids owned land, was rigged.
But the Obeids and Cascade Coal directors John McGuigan and Richard Poole, plus Cascade representative James McGuigan, will not face criminal charges.
The ACCC said it had decided to pursue civil proceedings, rather than criminal proceedings, after consultation with the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
The alleged cartel conduct took place in June 2009, a month before criminal cartel provisions came into force, the ACCC said.
The competition watchdog will allege the Obeids withdrew from the tender process for the licences, in exchange for an agreement with Cascade that the company would buy their land at four times its value.
Cascade was granted the licences, but the NSW government last year cancelled them due to the findings of the ICAC.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said the case involved serious allegations of cartel conduct, which harms consumers and the competitive process.
"There is also a real public interest in ensuring that competitive public tender processes are not undermined by bid rigging or other cartel conduct," he said.
"Ultimately it is taxpayers who are affected by any undermining of public tender processes."
Share
