Digest #5 - University of South Australia

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4 Upcoming Conferences 9th Annual Competition and Consumer Workshop The 9 th Annual Competition and Consumer Workshop is to be held at the Adelaide Convention Centre from 14–15 October 2011. The Workshop is sponsored by McWilliam’s Wines Group. The Workshop will be opened by the Honourable Justice John Mansfield of the Federal Court of Australia. Speakers include Dr Lilla Csorgo, currently Vice President, Charles River Associates, Toronto; Professor Richard Gilbert, Professor Emeritus of Economics and Professor of the Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley; and Merren McArthur, Group Executive – Alliances, Network & Yield, Virgin Australia. Enquiries about the program or registration should be directed to: Ms Rachel Gaetz on +61 8 8302 0510 (rachel.gaetz@unisa. edu.au) or Mrs Robyn McGeachie on +61 8 8302 7803 (robyn. mcgeachie@unisa.edu.au). 4th International Conference on Sustainable Irritation and Drainage: Management, Technologies and Policies The CRMA, in conjunction with The Wessex Institute of Technology, UK, is pleased to be organising the Sustainable Irrigation 2012 Conference, which will be held at the University of South Australia, City West Campus from 11–13 December 2012. For further information please see The Wessex Institute of Technology website: http://www.wessex.ac.uk/12-conferences/ sustainable-irrigation-2012.html Complete brochures for both conferences can be found on our website: http://www.unisa.edu.au/crma/default.asp
CRMA Cartel Project The CRMA’s Australian cartel history project is expanding fast. In the last few months we have appointed Dr Manish Agarwal as a Research Fellow and Dr Zdravka Brunkova and Mr Bernie O’Neil as Research Assistants to work with Professors David Round and Martin Shanahan and Research Fellow Dr Kerrie Round. The first major task for the researchers is to record the information contained in the Australian Register of Restrictive Agreements that was kept between 1967 and 1974, following the introduction of the Trade Practices Act 1965. Commonly referred to as the Secret Register, this comprises 14,480 inter-firm agreements of restrictive practices made by Australian firms and organisations. Because of the strict confidentiality provisions that applied to entities that registered their cartel agreements, access to it has never before been granted. We are fortunate to have been allowed sole access to the Register for research purposes. Because the files have to be returned to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, data from them will be entered into an Access database to provide an ongoing source of material for research. This will take about a year to complete. Unfortunately, all the supporting material, including correspondence, industry and firm evaluations, and records of meetings between firms and the Commissioner and his staff, was destroyed under the regular disposal schedule of the Australian Archives. While this has made the task harder, sufficient information remains in the files to allow the team to develop a detailed picture of the collusive and anti-competitive arrangements common, and Australian Cartel History Project Team generally accepted, in business practice until, and beyond, the introduction of the Trade Practices Act 1965. As a preliminary step the researchers did a quick run-through of all agreements and recorded basic information. Using this, plus details contained in the annual reports produced by the Commissioner of Trade Practices, Zdravka Brunkova and David Round have written a paper to be presented at the European Business History Association conference in Athens in August. Martin Shanahan and Kerrie Round have written a background paper on the development of the trade practices legislation and the Register that they will present at the same conference. Bernie O’Neil has scoured the parliamentary record, newspapers and other contemporary sources finding further voluminous evidence of the presence of anti- competitive behaviour and of the attitudes to it of various stakeholders. He is currently writing a paper on this. In June the cartel team welcomed Jacqui Donegan, a lecturer in public relations at James Cook University and holder of a Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship for Doctoral Study at the Australian National University. She has also been awarded the Alfred D. Chandler Jnr Travel Fellowship at Harvard Business School, which she will take up later this year. Jacqui’s thesis focuses on cartels in the confectionery industry in Australia between 1890 and 1930, and so she has a great compatibility in research interests with the members of the cartel project. 5
Page 1 and 2: from the Director’s Desk It has b
Page 3: Some Questions with Manish Agarwal
Page 7 and 8: Other News Researcher Awards In 201
Page 9 and 10: Recent Publications to July 2011 Fo
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Digest #5 - University of South Australia

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