PwC blocked from questioning lab for fake-coal probe

afr.com:

PwC investigators hired by miner Terracom’s lawyers were refused permission to interview a laboratory business accused of helping fake the coal miner’s quality certificates, documents reveal.

Terracom’s lawyers hired PwC to probe claims the miner had pressured laboratory business ALS to artificially boost results on coal export certificates. Terracom in public statements rejected such allegations, and cited PwC’s report as finding “no evidence of wrongdoing” by senior employees.

Coal from the Blair Athol mine in central Queensland was caught up in the fake testing allegations.  Robert Rough

But Terracom has admitted to refusing PwC’s interview request.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is suing Terracom and its key company figures, such as former chairman Wal King, saying public statements were misleading. They are defending the matter.

The Australian Financial Review in 2020 revealed allegations of coal sector fraud, with a former Terracom commercial manager alleging it had pressured ALS to manipulate test results to boost how much energy the commodity appeared to throw off when burned in power stations, for instance.

ALS later admitted between 45 per cent and 50 per cent of results for export certificates for all its coal mining work had been “manually amended without justification” for 13 years. It did not name which client’s results were altered.

Terracom “categorically” denied allegations of its involvement in such a scam “and had the conduct of its employees independently investigated,” it previously said.

ASIC’s current lawsuit is not into the fakery claims, but whether the mining company’s public statements about the allegations were misleading and breached the Corporations Act.

PwC had, via