Energy Efficiency

After Jackgreen’s demise, Griffin Coal Mining Co. (WA) has defaulted on a $475 million bonds  payment and has appointed an administrator and the Western Australia government won’t give Griffin financial aid.

Griffin is the oldest coal supplier in the state with about 500 employees and annual output of more than 5 million metric tons, so one wonders what has gone wrong.

And the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has commenced legal proceedings in the Federal Court against Prime Carbon Pty Ltd, a company that sold ‘soil carbon and sequestration program’ to farmers, aiming to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and store it in agricultural land.

Prime Carbon claim to ‘design and facilitate carbon sequestration and other greenhouse gas abatement and offsetting projects for customers; and assist in the creation and management of specific amounts of carbon dioxide sequestered or abated from the environment (carbon credits), and assist in the registration and marketing of those carbon credits.

However, the ACCC alleges Prime Carbon made false or misleading representations that a) the NER registry is the sole registry that meets the standards required of carbon credit registries by the Australian Government and the carbon credits listed on the registry, were specifically supervised or regulated by the Australian Government, b) the NER registry was the place where domestic and international buyers go to source carbon credits and c) the NER had a relationship with the Chicago Environment Registry which would assist NER-listed Australian carbon credits being traded on the international market, d) that it was a broker and aggregator with the NSX, and enquiries about the purchase of carbon credits aggregated by Prime Carbon have been or are likely to be generated by or through the NSX when this was not the case.

The ACCC also alleges that Prime Carbon’s sole director, Mr Ken Bellamy was knowingly concerned in or a party to, some of Prime Carbon’s contravening conduct.

The ACCC is seeking declarations, injunctions, corrective orders, trade practices compliance orders, findings of fact and costs.

A directions hearing has been set down for 23 February 2010 in the Federal Court, Brisbane, before Justice Spender.