Cargill Australia sues Viterra over Joe White Maltings purchase

CARGILL Australia is suing Viterra Limited for damages arising from its purchase of Joe White Maltings.

CARGILL Australia is suing Viterra Limited and subsidiaries for unspecified damages arising from its purchase of Joe White Maltings last October.

Cargill Australia spokesman Peter McBride said the grain company was “seeking damages for losses arising from breaches of warranty, misleading conduct and negligent misstatement in relations to the sale of the JWM”.

In documents lodged in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Cargill, which paid $420 million for the malting business, alleges Viterra failed to disclose information that would have materially affected the purchase of the maltster. Specifically, it alleges the firm did not disclose the JWM business routinely supplied malt to customers who did not meet their specifications and regularly misstated results of analytical tests on certificates sent with malt contracts.

The documents alleged “the certificate reported that the malt complied with contractual requirement and specifications when it did not”.

Viterra disputes the ­allegations.

A company spokeswoman said as legal proceedings were under way, it would be “inappropriate to provide specific detail at this point”.

“We do note, however, during its ownership of Joe White Maltings, Viterra was not the subject of any material quality or contractual claims from its malt customers,” she said.

Cargill said JWM was now only operating at 60 per cent of capacity and $30 million had to be spent to build new storage and blending capacity at plants in NSW, South Australia and Western Australia to meet customer contracts.

It is also claiming almost $2.4 million paid to WA grain company CBH during the past year for storage contracted by JWM in 2012.