Adani about to receive criminal conviction over false documents
Adani agrees to plead guilty to giving ‘false or misleading documents to an administering authority’, may be fined up to $3m
Key points:
- The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court
- It belatedly declared clearing land on its mine site after environmentalists complained to the government
- The company says it has been prosecuted for an “an administrative error”
Adani has agreed to plead guilty to giving “false or misleading documents to an administering authority”, according to the court file and sources familiar with the case.
The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing today in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
It faces a fine of up to $3 million if convicted under the Environmental Protection Act.
According to notes in the court file made by Magistrate Stephen Courtney and seen by the ABC, the matter is “to be [a] plea of guilty”.
In court papers, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) says Adani filed its annual return in March 2018 with a graph declaring it cleared no land on the Carmichael mine site, north-west of Clermont, in 2017-18.
The DES alleged it became aware of the offence six months later. It alleged Adani “knew or ought reasonably to have known [the document] was false or misleading” because it had planned and carried out land clearing before and during the reporting period.
On September 6, 2018, conservation group Coast and Country raised land clearing allegations with the State Government, citing satellite imagery.
State and federal environment department officials then inspected the site within days……..https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/adani-to-plead-guilty-court-qld/11932640
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