ABSTRACT
James Hardie Industries Limited (JHIL) and its wholly owned subsidiaries, James Hardie & Coy Pty Ltd, which manufactured and marketed asbestos products until 1987, and Jsekarb Pty Ltd, which manufactured brake linings, began manufacturing asbestos in 1916. Hardie developed into the largest building supplier in the country, and its growth was based so much on asbestos that until 1979 the stock exchange listed company was called James Hardie Asbestos, and the group's imposing headquarters in Sydney was called Asbestos House. The scandal broke when in October 2003 the directors of Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (MRCF) announced publicly that the foundation was severely underfunded. During the late 1990s, assets were moved out of James Hardie and Coy meaning that it was no longer able to earn profits in order to pay its liabilities. It was necessary for Commissioner David Jackson to examine these transactions to see if any of them had been illegal or had contributed to underfunding of MCRF.
