Ex BlueScope manager Jason Ellis sentenced for obstructing ACCC cartel investigation 

Former BlueScope manager Jason Ellis gets suspended sentence for obstructing ACCC cartel probe into alleged price fixing.

The Port Kembla Steelworks are the home of BlueScope Steel. Picture: AAP /Dean Lewins.

Jason Ellis, a former general manager of sales and marketing at BlueScope Steel, has been sentenced to eight months in prison for inciting the obstruction of an ACCC investigation into alleged price fixing.

However, magistrate Jennifer Atkinson on Tuesday ordered that Mr Ellis be released, without entering custody, upon entering into a recognisance in the sum of $1000, on the condition that he be of good behaviour for two years.

Ms Atkinson, in Sydney’s Downing Centre Court, also ordered that Mr Ellis pay a fine of $10,000.

“This is the first time an individual had been charged with, and convicted of, inciting the obstruction of an ACCC investigation,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said.

Mr Ellis incited two fellow BlueScope employees to give false information and evidence to the ACCC over discussions he and those BlueScope employees had during their meetings with certain other steel companies.

In September Mr Ellis, son of former BHP chairman Jerry Ellis, entered a guilty plea to one charge of “inciting the obstruction of Commonwealth public officials in the performance of their functions” in a Sydney court.

The maximum sentence available for such a charge is two years’ imprisonment.

The ACCC was investigating allegations that, between September 2013 and June 2014, BlueScope and Mr Ellis attempted to induce various steel distributors in Australia and overseas manufacturers to enter arrangements containing a price fixing provision.

Jason Ellis.

The ACCC has filed separate civil cartel proceedings against BlueScope and Mr Ellis, which remain before the Federal Court.

However, BlueScope has escaped criminal prosecution over alleged price fixing.

Court documents filed in the civil case claim BlueScope and Mr Ellis approached domestic steel distributors and international mills to try to induce them to set prices on steel sold in Australia by referencing Bluescope’s own pricing book.

The ACCC alleges BlueScope and Mr Ellis — who have said they will defend the civil case — threatened overseas steelmakers with anti-dumping complaints if they did not lift steel prices into Australia.

The documents filed by the ACCC allege Mr Ellis and BlueScope devised a “carrot and stick” strategy to protect the company’s position amid a global plunge in steel prices and threatened overseas mills that BlueScope would use Australia’s anti-dumping laws to seek punitive duties on imported steel if they did not raise prices.

At the same time, the ACCC alleges, BlueScope offered to publish its own prices to its competitors to induce them to lift their own prices without the risk of losing sales volumes.

BlueScope has previously denied involvement in any attempt to fix the price of steel, saying it has been working with the ACCC since the cartel behaviour allegations were first raised in 2017. An extensive internal investigation had revealed no sign staff had breached the law, BlueScope said.

The alleged price fixing occurred as a flood of Chinese steel hit global markets as the Australian mining boom softened, threatening the company’s dominant position in the Australian steel market, and prompting BlueScope and rival steelmaker Arrium to ramp up complaints about Chinese manufacturers dumping steel into the Australian market.

Australia’s use of anti-dumping provisions has also become one of China’s key complaints amid rising tensions between Beijing and Canberra, with Chinese authorities accusing Australia of using tariff barriers to protect Australian manufacturers — including BlueScope — from international competition.

In July the Chinese government warned, in a submission to the anti-dumping commission, excessive anti-dumping complaints by BlueScope could provoke retaliation against the Australian iron ore industry.