Rubber chemicals class action

Maurice Blackburn brought this class action in the Federal Court of Australia against major international chemical manufacturers Bayer and Chemtura (formerly Crompton / Uniroyal).

The case alleged a conspiracy to fix the price of Rubber Chemicals sold in Australia between 1995 and 2001, in breach of sections 45 and 45A of the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth). It was claimed that the prices of certain Rubber Chemicals were fixed, controlled and maintained through secret arrangements between various Rubber Chemicals manufacturers, pursuant to which they allocated customers, sales volumes and market shares by preventing, restricting or limiting the supply of Rubber Chemicals.

The case was commenced in 2007 and hotly contested over a four-year period.

Settlement

In September 2011 Justice Tracey of the Federal Court of Australia approved a settlement in this matter which delivered compensation representing nearly 70% of claimants' losses.

This is the third successfully concluded cartel class action in Australian legal history.  Each of those three class actions (Vitamins, Amcor/Visy and Rubber Chemicals) was conducted by Maurice Blackburn. We are proud to have helped businesses to recover monies lost to them through this instance of corporate misbehaviour.