James Hardie is appealing against the declarations and orders made against it.
(AAP: Dean Lewins, file photo)
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The building materials company James Hardie has announced it has lodged an
appeal against rulings made in the Supreme Court of New South Wales last month.
In August the court imposed hefty fines on former board members and banned
them from managing a company for various lengths of time over misleading
statements about a compensation fund for asbestos victims.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, James Hardie says it is appealing
against the declarations and orders made against it by Justice Gzell.
On August 27, six former James Hardie directors including disgraced chairman
Meredith Hellicar were granted a stay on five-year bans meted out in the NSW
Supreme Court.
In a brief hearing in the NSW Supreme Court at the time, lawyers for six of the
non-executive directors successfully applied for a 28-day stay on the bans.
Earlier in August, former Hardie chief executive Peter Macdonald, two former
James Hardie executives and seven non-executive directors were fined and
banned from directing a company.
All were found guilty of breaching the Corporations Act when making misleading
statements about the adequacy of an asbestos compensation fund, and a
corporate restructure in 2003.
Macdonald suffered the harshest penalty, banned from managing a company
for 15 years and fined $350,000.
The nine other executives were banned for a period between five and seven
years, and fined between $30,000 and $75,000.
Hellicar, Michael Brown, Michael Gillfillan, Martin Koffel, Geoffrey O'Brien and
Gregory Terry had the disqualifications put off until 5:00pm AEST on September 24.
All had been slapped with five-year bans.
All except O'Brien also applied for a September 24 stay on the financial penalty
of $30,000 - an application granted by Justice Gzell.
The six applications were opposed by the Australian Securities and Investment
Commission (ASIC).
Penalties meted out to the disgraced directors came under fire last month, with
sbestos victims and their families complaining the fines were too light.
ASIC had called for fines ranging from $120,000 for non-executive directors
and a fine of between $1.48 million and $1.87 million against MacDonald.
James Hardie itself was only fined $80,000 by Justice Gzell, much less than the
$200,000 called for by ASIC.
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