Rough Justice?

High-profile stockbroker Renee Rivkin is locked up for insider trading as Australian consumers are sentenced to a pro-business chief of the ACCC.

Rivkin Goes Inside

The celebrity stockbroker Rene Rivkin will serve 78 days in Silverwater Jail for insider trading. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which instigated the insider trading charge, will review Rivkin's stockbroking licence. If his intended appeal is unsuccessful he will also have to resign from 40-odd public company directorships. Justice Whealy said the sentence should provide a "firm disincentive" to those carrying out illegal activities, especially in the securities industry.He was also fined $30,000. The maximum possible sentence was five years' jail and a $200,000 fine. (Source; SMH)

ACCC Boss's Baptism Of Fire

A brief on legal options to attack the "creeping acquisitions" of the two supermarket giants, Woolworths and Coles-Myer, will be incoming ACCC acting chairman Graeme Samuel's first challenge next month. "It's a hospital pass for Samuel," one commission insider observed to The Australian. The initiative has strong internal support, and was described by senior executives as a "commission priority" to staff last month. This is despite the legal basis for action against the supermarket duopoly's acquisition of small outlets and liquor stores being tenuous under the Trade Practices Act. It will force Mr Samuel, widely regarded as a friend of big business, to confront the ACCC's deeply held competition policy concerns about the biggest of Australia's big businesses: the supermarket duopoly. Analysts expect it to be a major test of Mr Samuel's policy mettle, and a clear pointer to his long-term approach to the job. (Source: The Australian)

Aristocrat's Boss Marks Time

The chairman of Aristocrat, John Ducker, wants to go. But the law says he can't. Mr Ducker and John Pascoe are the only two Australian residents on Aristocrat's board - the minimum required under the Corporations Act. A spokesman for Mr Ducker said yesterday that, contrary to expectations, Mr Ducker would stay on the board until Aristocrat found a replacement. "It is a bit like Hotel California; you can check out but you can never leave," the spokesman told the SMH. Mr Ducker announced his intention to resign at the company's annual meeting on April 15, but did not specify a date. (Source: SMH)

Telstra Encourages Workplace Spies

Telstra employees will be asked to dob in corrupt or incompetent colleagues through a whistleblowers' website being developed to make the company more transparent.

The managing director of regulatory, corporate and human relations, Bill Scales, told a Senate estimates inquiry this week the website would be an avenue for lower-level employees to lodge complaints directly with upper management. "It's intended for our staff to give them confidence that they are able to bring serious allegations against management," Mr Scales told the inquiry. (Source: The Australian)

Gray Misses $100m Payout

Any hopes Bruce Gray might have had for early retirement with a mouth-watering $100 million in his back pocket have evaporated as Cephalon's $270 million takeover offer for Sirtex Medical failed. Control of his revolutionary treatment for liver cancer stays in local hands, but for 35 per cent Sirtex stakeholder Dr Gray, aged 61, thoughts of spending more time with his young family receded yesterday. The US market alone for his novel treatment, which uses radioactive material to burn cancerous growth on livers, is estimated at about $US500 million ($A760 million) a year. Likely sales in other markets are harder to assess, although the rising incidence of hepatitis B and C in Asia means that demand there, too, will surge over the next few years. (Source; SMH)

Fast Food Giants Strive For Health

Increasing criticism of processed and takeaway foods and the trend to healthier eating and living habits have put pressure on advertisers to change tack or lose customers. Already McDonald's and KFC are in the process of creating campaigns to persuade customers that not all fast food is bad for you. Media buyers said agencies were working closely with manufacturers of fast moving consumer goods to come up with new foods and campaigns to fit in with the new fight against obesity in children. The recent Sweeney Sport Report survey showed that fast food companies were falling from favour as sponsors of sport. (Source: SMH)

Halliburton Deal On Lawsuits

US oilfield-services company Halliburton has agreed to pay $9 million to settle 20 shareholder lawsuits that accused it of using deceptive accounting practices while Dick Cheney led the company. Cheney was chief executive of the Houston company from 1995 until August 2000, when he resigned to go on to become US Vice President The lawsuits challenged the way that the counted revenue from cost overruns and change orders on long-term fixed-price construction projects. The company said three of the four lead plaintiffs in the shareholder suit had agreed to the settlement and a fourth was evaluating the offer. The plaintiffs bought Halliburton stock between 1998 and 2002, and the cases had been combined into one class-action lawsuit (Source: Daily Telegraph)