Qantas approved Joyce share sale five weeks after ACCC demand notice

afr.com:

Qantas allowed its chief executive Alan Joyce to sell $17 million in shares despite receiving a detailed demand for information as part of the competition regulator’s investigation into whether the airline inappropriately sold thousands of flight tickets.

AFR Weekend has confirmed that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sent the airline compulsory information notices – which require companies to hand over documents – on April 26. That was the second such notice sent, with the first given to Qantas on September 14 last year in the early stages of the investigation.

Mr Joyce sold 90 per cent of his shares in Qantas on June 1. On August 31, the ACCC said it would launch legal action against the airline, alleging it sold tickets on 8000 flights that it had already cancelled, keeping those fares available for weeks after the decisions had been made.

Despite record profits, Qantas shares have fallen as the company comes under regulatory and political scrutiny. Mark Baker

The first request for information was made in response to the large volume of customer complaints made about the airline, sources close to the matter said. The ACCC has previously said that Qantas had been the most complained about company in Australia for two years running.

Michael Corrigan, a partner at Clayton Utz specialising in competition law, said the “threshold to issue the notices is the ACCC has to have a view that there may be a breach of the act”. Mr Corrigan, who was not speaking specifically about Qantas, said the receipt of a notice was “a significant step and a company gets to know it is reasonably serious”.

Others with detailed knowledge of how the regulator operates, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing their close