The Federal Court has ordered Queensland-based oil and gas services company Qteq Pty Ltd and its executive chairman, Simon Ashton, to pay a combined $6 million AUD (approximately $4.16 million USD) in penalties following a high-profile ACCC investigation into attempted cartel conduct.
Handed down today, the judgment includes a $5 million AUD ($3.47 million USD) fine for Qteq and a $1 million AUD ($694,000 USD) penalty for Mr. Ashton. The fine against Mr. Ashton is the highest competition law penalty ever awarded against an individual in Australian history. Justice Bromwich also imposed a rare non-indemnification order, meaning Mr. Ashton is legally barred from using insurance to pay the fine, ensuring the financial hit is felt personally.
The case centered on events between 2017 and 2019, when Qteq was the market leader in “gauge works”—the specialized installation of monitoring systems in coal seam gas wells. The court found that on five separate occasions, Mr. Ashton and Qteq attempted to induce competitors, including Pro-Test and Easternwell, into illegal agreements. These attempts aimed to rig a multi-million-dollar tender for the energy giant Shell (operating as QGC), share markets, and coordinate a refusal to supply services to other major oil and gas players.
ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb emphasized that the illegality of the conduct was not diminished by its failure. “Each of Qteq’s attempts to secure these illegal arrangements was unsuccessful only because the other parties rejected Qteq’s offers,” she stated. “As this case demonstrates, if you try to make cartel agreements with competitors, you will be met with strong enforcement action by the ACCC—even if your attempts do not succeed.”
Justice Bromwich noted that Mr. Ashton was the “driving force” behind the strategy to neutralize competitive threats. The court’s firm stance reflects an ongoing priority to hold senior executives personally accountable for corporate misconduct, particularly in critical infrastructure sectors like energy.
