NSW: James Hardie bans a win for Banton and victims - O'Farrell

AAP General News (Australia)
08-20-2009
NSW: James Hardie bans a win for Banton and victims - O'Farrell

SYDNEY, Aug 20 AAP - A decision to ban 10 James Hardie executives for deceiving asbestos
victims about compensation payments shows campaigner Bernie Banton didn't die in vain,
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell says.

In the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday, James Hardie's former chief executive Peter Macdonald
was banned from managing a company for 15 years and fined $350,000 for breaching the Corporations
Act.

The nine other executives were banned for a period between five and seven years, for
breaching the Act during the creation of an asbestos compensation trust in 2001 and a
corporate restructure in 2003.

A press release approved by the board of James Hardie in February 2001 was found to
contain deceptive and misleading comments about the company's capacity to meet its compensation
liabilities for asbestos disease sufferers.

Mr O'Farrell said the tough penalties meted out to the James Hardie executives were
a "great result" and provided some justice to asbestos victims.

"It is justice for those victims ... workers shouldn't be treated in this way," Mr
O'Farrell told reporters in Sydney.

"This goes part of the way to ensuring that Bernie Banton didn't die in vain."

Mr Banton, the public face of the campaign against James Hardie, died in November 2007
from mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos.

AAP ab/jl/bwl

KEYWORD: JAMES HARDIE OFARRELL

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