The NSW Supreme Court has ordered a NSW south coast company and the estate of its deceased principal to pay
The NSW Supreme Court has ordered a NSW south coast company and the estate of its deceased principal to pay nearly $21 million after being convicted of a series of fuel blending offences.
The offences concerned the illegal blending of petroleum products such as petrol, diesel, heating oil and ethanol to obtain a price advantage, particularly the manufacturing of excisable goods, the movement of excisable goods and the evasion of excise duty.
Tax Office Deputy Commissioner for Excise Tim Dyce said, “This case represents one of the
largest penalties ever handed down by a court for an excise matter and sends a clear message that evading excise duty is a serious offence with very serious consequences.”
Customs National Manager Investigations Richard Janeczko says the outcome was a credit to the “professional work done by Customs and then the ATO on a very complex matter”.
Justice David Kirby handed down his judgement involving petroleum wholesale company Camile Trading P/L of Albion Park and its principal, Leslie Ronald Fletcher, who died last year.
Camile Trading and Fletcher’s estate were each ordered to pay $10,353,000, plus court costs, including more than $3 million in excise duty which had been evaded.
In describing the offences as serious, Justice Kirby stated that significant excise duty was intentionally evaded by the company with the knowledge and complicity of Fletcher.
“It was a commercial operation on a very large scale. It was conducted mainly with cash and without documentation for a sustained period of two and a half years,” he said.
In commenting on Fletcher’s death during the proceedings, Justice Kirby says he accepted the prosecution argument that the liability for the penalty had been passed on to the estate of Fletcher.
The investigations into the case were conducted by the Australian Customs Service and the Australian Taxation Office took over the prosecution when excise matters were transferred from Customs to the ATO in the year 2000.