Kingaroy duboisia producer Alkaloids of Australia pleads guilty to cartel charges

A Kingaroy company and its former export manager have pleaded guilty to price fixing, bid rigging and assorted cartel activities in a historic court case.

Alkaloids of Australia and its former export manager have pleaded guilty to cartel offences.

A Kingaroy agriculture company that is the leading producer of pharmaceutical ingredients has pleaded guilty in a historic first at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court to three cartel charges.

Alkaloids of Australia Pty Ltd is based in Kingaroy and is one of the country’s main producers of the pharmaceutical ingredients derived from duboisia and has faced charges of price fixing

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has reported Alkaloids of Australia further admitted to seven additional offences involving price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation cartel arrangements with other overseas pharmaceutical ingredient suppliers

The company produces and supplies scopolamine N-butylbromide, also known as hyoscine butylbromide, which is an active pharmaceutical ingredient in antispasmodic medications taken to relieve stomach pain and bowel cramps.

Duboisia is native to the South Burnett and is slowly replacing peanuts as the preferred cash crop for Kingaroy farmers.

It is extracted from the duboisia plants that are native to the South Burnett.

In the past 20 years duboisia has grown in popularity among Kingaroy farmers who supply the raw material to only a handful of heavily regulated and tightly controlled local and international companies.

On October 26, the company’s former export manager Christopher Kenneth Joyce pleaded guilty to criminal cartel conduct

The price fixing charges to which Joyce has pleaded guilty to cover an eight-year period from July 2009, when criminal cartel laws came into force in Australia.

“This is the first guilty plea by an individual to criminal cartel conduct under the criminal cartel laws,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said.

The maximum fine for corporation for each criminal cartel offence is the greater of:

$10 million, three times the total benefits that have been obtained and are reasonably attributable to the commission of the offence or 10 per cent of the corporation’s annual turnover connected with Australia.

An individual convicted of a criminal cartel offence may be sentenced to up to 10 years’ imprisonment and fined up to $444,000.

Alkaloids of Australia has been committed to the Federal Court of Australia for sentencing, and the matter is next listed for a case management hearing on 25 November 2021.

Joyce as been committed to the Federal Court of Australia for sentencing, with a hearing date listed for February 1, 2022.