List of CEOs going to prison for contempt in the last 30 years:
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While not for the particular charge of contempt of senate and not a complete list, these CEOs have been imprisoned in the past 20 years:
- Andrew Ferguson, Bight Abalone
- Matthew Perrin, Billabong
- Gavin Pollock, Shire of Ravensthorpe
- Daniel Tartak, Bingo Industries (skip bins) *
- Emmanuel Roussakis, Aussie Skips *
* These two were convicted together for price fixing
Being a CEO doesn’t put you above the law. It just buys you better lawyers.
As I said: not for contempt. Nobody who can afford a good lawyer will ever go to prison for contempt. Also: That is a depressing short list for 20 years. As if not more CEO deserved to go to prison for wage theft and other things.
I just pasted the names and companies from the first few Google hits. There were plenty more hits, but I wasn’t going to read them all.
I actually couldn’t find anyone who had ever been imprisoned for contempt of senate. The charge exists, and a prison term is possible, but I don’t know that it has ever actually happened. It comes over as an hollow threat.
I mean, establishing that there’s a problem with CEOs not going to gaol for contempt of Senate would first require establishing that CEOs are committing contempt of Senate, at the very least to a standard of “a reasonable concern exists”.
I feel like inflation has rather diminished the impact of the monetary side of a contempt finding - $5k just doesn’t have the same impact as six months in prison anymore. It’s like how you see the occasional old sign in lifts warning that smoking can be punished by a (presumably initially impactful) fine of up to $20…
Silly grandstanding and empty threats from the greens. If you are serious about the supermarket duopoly then work with labour to force them to divest. Another gab fest senate inquiry not going to do jack shit.
