KEY POINTS:
Australian corporate watchdog the Australian Securities and Investments Commission has commenced civil proceedings against building products company James Hardie Industries.
The action by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will be heard in the NSW Supreme Court.
The case will come to court on March 15 and concerns alleged contraventions of the Corporations Law by James Hardie between February 2001 and June 2003.
ASIC chairman Jeff Lucy told James Hardie in a letter yesterday that the action surrounds alleged breaches by the company, its former subsidiary ABN 60 Pty Ltd and ten individuals of the Corporations Law and Act.
"I advise that ASIC has today commenced civil penalty proceedings against James Hardie Industries NV and others in the Supreme Court of NSW," he wrote.
James Hardie said the subject matter of the allegations varied between individuals, which included chairman Meredith Hellicar.
The other defendants are former chief executive Peter Donald MacDonald, Peter James Shafron, Phillip Graham Morley and directors Michael Robert Brown and Michael John Gillfillan.
They also include Martin Koffel, Geoffrey Frederick O'Brien, Gregory James Terry, Peter John Willcox.
One of the claims made relates to the cancellation of party-paid shares in ABN 60 Pty Ltd, which is all that remains of the company in Australia after it moved its headquarters to the Netherlands in 2001.
Earlier this month, James Hardie shareholders agreed on a new compensation package worth more than $4 billion over 40 years.
The New South Wales secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Andrew Ferguson, said this action was long overdue.
He labelled the decision a great victory for the asbestos victims and their families.
- AAP, RADIO AUSTRALIA
