Cartel dirt comes out in the ACCC wash

With the fireworks of New Year's Day 2008 still ringing in their ears, senior executives from US consumer goods giant Colgate-Palmolive and Australia's biggest supermarket chain Woolworths met to discuss the direction of the $500 million laundry detergent industry.

It was at this meeting that Colgate laid out its plan to cook up a cartel involving the three leading suppliers of laundry products in Australia, according to allegations made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Indeed, it was this meeting, the ACCC claims, that would see Colgate and main rivals, Cussons and Unilever, move in lock-step to launch on the unsuspecting public a new "ultra concentrate" detergent category. The date of that first meeting is almost laughable because only three days later, on January 11, the federal government released a draft bill to criminalise cartel behaviour, seeking up to five years' jail for company executives who were caught in the act.

The fact all this was happening in the maelstrom of the sensational cartel case against the late Richard Pratt and his Visy packaging empire seems to have gone completely unnoticed by the executives at the laundry detergent companies, because on they pressed into 2009 with their cunning plan to rip off shoppers.

Inner workings of the cartel came to light on Thursday when the ACCC claimed it had busted a conspiracy involving three leading detergent makers that, combined, controlled nearly 85 per cent of the market, along with a senior sales director for Colgate, Paul Ansell.

The alleged cartel involves the biggest selling brands in the country, such as Cold Power, Radiant and Omo.

The regulator is not accusing Woolworths of being a main driver of the alleged cartel, although it was a front-and-centre witness to its foundation, and held several meetings at its corporate offices in which the alleged cartel was discussed at length. Woolworths said it would vigorously defend the action brought against it by the competition regulator.

Again, despite Pratt making the headlines daily and the dirty world of cartels being constantly talked about within the business community, as well as in Canberra, nobody thought it was suspect, unusual, illegal or downright silly for the three biggest competitors in the laundry sector to get together in a room and share secrets.

The ACCC's allegations, laid out through nearly 70 pages in a statement of claim filed with the Federal Court, detail the running meetings, emails, overseas trips and cosy chats that began in early January 2008 with Colgate's light-bulb idea to nudge shoppers from "standard concentrate" laundry powder to a new whiz-bang "ultra concentrate" powder.

With the participation of Accord Australasia, the national industry association for the hygiene, cosmetic and specialty products industries, by the end of that year Cussons and Unilever had allegedly signed up to the Colgate plan and March 2, 2009, was set down as D-Day for the industry-wide launch of "ultra concentrate" powder.

The documents claim the cartel conspirators believed that by moving in lock-step on a uniform innovation push, that by mirroring each other's pack sizes and dimensions, they would safeguard an estimated $146 million in value over four years. What they all feared was a staggered release of "ultra concentrate" in a truly competitive market, whereby price reductions would be likely to occur as consumers tested out the new powder and demanded permanent discounts and promotions for their brand loyalty.

How news of the alleged cartel reached the ears of ACCC chairman Rod Sims is unclear. However, it seems that the New Zealand competition regulator asked Unilever - along with other players - in 2011 to make sure its "house was in order" and it was during this audit that Unilever discovered the truth about what was being cooked up in Australia.

Unilever was the first to race to the ACCC and ask for immunity in return for spilling the beans on Colgate, Cussons and Woolworths.

The message for corporates and their executives should be very clear: if you enter a room full of your biggest rivals and you aren't discussing the latest football results, get out of the room quick.