Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [65]
Stephen Cleary, group general manager of freight, and Harold Pang, general manager of freight sales in Singapore, were still employed by the company and had Qantas’s unswerving support. ‘This does not mean the individuals have been involved in any illegal activity nor that the Department of Justice will prosecute them. Both of the current Qantas employees deny involvement in any illegal conduct,’ said a statement issued by the airline.9 Also exempt were four former employees: Peter Frampton, former general manager of freight sales and marketing; John Cooper, former vice president of freight for the Americas; former employee Desmond Church; and Bruce McCaffrey. The difference between McCaffrey and his five co-conspirators was that they were in Australia and he was a US citizen living in America. Because competition offences were not criminal in Australia then, there was no prospect of the other five Australian residents being extradited to face court in the US. McCaffrey was on his own.
He told Air Cargo News that Qantas had abandoned him. Debilitated by a stroke, suffering from arthritis and in need of a kidney transplant, he needed to raise $US500,000 to defend himself in a case he had no guarantee he would win. He said Qantas told him it would share his legal fees if he fought the case and won. If he lost, he would be on his own to face over a million dollars in fines and possibly ten years in jail.
Qantas denied McCaffrey’s claim and insisted it had stood by him. Its general counsel, Brett Johnson, told the Australian it had introduced white-collar-crime specialists to McCaffrey, but at arm’s length, and had never attempted to influence his decision. Nevertheless, McCaffrey felt his only option was to cooperate with investigators.
In the US District Court in Washington DC, Judge John Bates sentenced him to six months in jail – two months fewer than the plea deal he had agreed with investigators because he had been such a vital prosecution witness. McCaffrey was also fined $US20,000 for his part in price-fixing at least $US244.4 million worth of air cargo between January 2000 and February 2006. Prosecutor Katherine Schlech told the judge: ‘Defendant McCaffrey has provided a wealth of information regarding specific meetings and discussions with competitors about surcharges, rates and other competitively sensitive business information. The information he provided about these contacts has been corroborated by other witnesses and contemporaneous documents from Qantas files as well as those of US-based competitors.’10
McCaffrey’s New York-based lawyers, Jeffrey Udell and Thomas Fleming, said the ailing 65-year-old was simply a middle manager and that blame needed to be levelled at his bosses in Sydney. ‘At Qantas, the plan to engage in price-fixing emanated from Sydney, which gave direction to Qantas managers around the world, including Mr McCaffrey, to coordinate certain aspects of pricing with their colleagues at other airlines.’11
His sister-in-law, Cindy McCaffrey, wrote to the judge: ‘It saddens me greatly that this man has been used as a scapegoat for the failing of his corporate bosses and is being sacrificed on their behalf.’12 ‘By following their policy decisions he became their victim. We, his family and friends, are devastated knowing he was the one taking the brunt of the blame for this crime. Why is it that senior management, the ones making all the decisions, are not forced to face these charges?’13 Judge Bates agreed: ‘Most responsible from his company will never face these kind of consequences,’ he said.14
Afterwards McCaffrey said:
The