BRISBANE (CU)_In May 2021, it was revealed that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched an investigation into Queensland-based TerraCom and its current and former employees regarding testing, certification and sale of coal between December 2016 and March 2020. The probe was initiated after a former commercial manager of the mining company, Justin Williams, alleged in a 2019 court case that TerraCom, together with its marketing agent, Singapore-based commodities giant Noble, had laboratory giant ALS artificially boost its analysis certificates of coal. At the time, the company’s chairman Wal King adamantly rejected the allegations and even claimed that an independent forensic investigation was conducted and no evidence of wrongdoing was found.
Now it has been revealed that TerraCom is attempting to prevent the ASIC from inspecting internal report issued by advisory group PwC, citing legal professional privilege. According to court documents, in August 2019, TerraCom had commissioned Ashurst Australia to provide the company with legal advice regarding Williams’ allegations, and Ashurst in turn hired PwC to provide forensic support for its legal advice. Although TerraCom has claimed legal professional privilege regarding the documents, the ASIC has provided notice in July that it does not accept this claim in respect of the PwC report.
The court documents further revealed that the Securities Commission also raided TerraCom’s Blair Athol mine in March, and issued “section 33” notices to King in April, requesting him to hand over documents. As part of its probe, the ASIC also investigated Brisbane-based ALS, who has already admitted that between 2007 and 2020, almost 45 to 50 per cent of its coal export certificates had been “manually amended without justification”. The lab giant has handed over the results of the internal investigation to the authorities.
