Man at flashpoint escapes heat of price-fixing scam

By CHRIS DANIELS

One of the men involved in the oil giants' price-fixing case is still working for Caltex's parent company overseas.

Caltex was one of the three oil companies ordered to pay penalties of $1.175 million for breaching the Commerce Act when they decided to withdraw a free car-wash promotion at the same time.

Caltex was singled out for the highest penalty of $450,000. The judge found that the company initiated the action and did not cooperate with Commerce Commission investigators.

Justice Salmon said an aggravating feature of the case was that oil company personnel made efforts to "cover up what they had done through untruthful responses to questioning by the commission, and, as detailed in my judgment, to this court."

One of these people was Caltex executive Stuart Crum, an American who was the general manager of retail marketing in the Caltex head office.

He was involved in the decision to withdraw the free car washes.

Nick Florio, compliance officer for Caltex New Zealand, said Mr Crum was now working for Texaco, part-owner of Caltex, after leaving New Zealand "a couple of years ago."

"We did an internal investigation into behaviour in the whole case and as far as we were concerned - Caltex locally and Caltex internationally - we found there was no inappropriate behaviour," said Mr Florio. "Obviously the judge found differently. Internally we didn't feel that anyone was responsible for breaching the Commerce Act."

Anyone who lies to the Commerce Commission, under oath or otherwise, can be penalised up to $10,000. Penalties for companies range up to $30,000.

The commission did not take action against the individuals in this case, because it must do so no later than six months after misleading statements are made.

"We didn't realise until after the six months had gone that the information had been false," said commission spokesman Vince Cholewa.

Another person Justice Salmon said did not tell the truth was Mobil executive Paul Catlow.

"On the basis of this evidence, it is appropriate to conclude that Mr Catlow lied to the commission," said Justice Salmon in his judgment.

Mobil spokeswoman Rowan Macrae said Mr Catlow had left the company "of his own volition" last February.

She said Mobil had gone to the Commerce Commission "within hours" of finding out what had been happening.

"If it hadn't been for us going to the commission with our information, the investigation could have potentially taken a lot longer and been more costly for them.

"We take it seriously, which is why when we discovered what had happened we went to the commission and told them. We certainly made no effort to cover that up."

Shell spokesman Antonius Papaspiropoulos refused to comment on whether employees involved in the price-fixing case were still working for Shell.