Amcor sues Ramsay as asbestos dispute escalates

A legal battle involving Amcor that is threatening a large urban infill project has taken a new twist.

The old Amcor paper mill in Alphington is being demolished. Picture: Ian Currie

A legal battle involving Amcor that is threatening development of one of Melbourne’s largest urban infill projects has taken a new twist, with the packaging giant taking legal action against its original environmental consultant on the site after asbestos was found in the soil.

The 16.5ha site beside the Yarra River at Alphington, in Melbourne’s inner north, was once the site of an Amcor paper mill, but is now being transformed by developer Genvill Homes into a $2 billion housing development set to be the city’s first Tesla-powered housing estate.

The decade-long development is the biggest ever undertaken by Glenvill.

While Amcor left the site in 2012, Glenvill has launched legal action against the former owner over an alleged $8.5 million in outstanding payments and interest for remediation on the site. It has also asked Amcor to accept responsibility for all further remediation costs, which could be as high as $25m.

Now it has emerged that Amcor is suing its original environmental consultant on the site, Ramsay & Associates, which undertook a detailed site investigation and made a report on contamination that was relied on by Amcor and the site’s buyers, Glenvill and its development partner Alpha Partners.

Glenvill and Alpha paid $120m for the land in 2013, with the former contributing $90m to the purchase price. But subsequent work by GHD Australia in 2015 during demolition works at the site found asbestos that was not identified in the initial Ramsay report. In its statement of claim filed with the Victorian Supreme Court, Amcor claims Ramsay made negligent misrepresentations, breached its duty of care and breached contractual terms in connection with its engagement by Amcor to conduct an environmental assessment of the site and provide estimates of the cost of remediating it.

The packaging giant is seeking damages in excess of the initial Ramsay cost estimate of $7.33m. But in its defence, Ramsay claims the contractual time limit for Amcor to make a claim expired in June last year and says the report was only prepared for Amcor to rely on, and not Glenvill and Alpha, unless Ramsay provided consent.

It alleges that the GHD cost estimate was based on new and updated material, including an amended remediation approach and a “changed” development plan for the site. Ramsay also says its initial report did not include investigation of certain areas of the site due to “access constraints, safety concerns, and on instructions from Amcor Australasia”.