Australian coal miner TerraCom <TER.AX> on Monday denied a claim in an unfair dismissal case that it altered assay reports to improve the quality of its coal shipments for export.
The Australian Financial Review said on Monday a former TerraCom employee had alleged in a Federal Circuit Court filing that the company had worked with Brisbane-based testing laboratory ALS Ltd <ALQ.AX> to falsely upgrade the quality of its coal in export documentation.
"TerraCom categorically denies these allegations," the miner said in a filing to the Australian stock exchange, adding that the company and six directors named would vigorously defend the case.
TerraCom said it took the allegations extremely seriously and had had the conduct of its employees independently investigated.
In a separate statement on Monday, ALS said it had suspended four employees after an initial investigation found analysis certificates of coal samples were amended before their issue without "proper justification".
The changes to the certification of the samples were found to have taken place at two laboratories in Australia in the coal superintending and certification unit of the company's coal business, ALS said. It did not give further details of the samples.
The laboratory firm said an independent investigation would be conducted into the certification process and measures had been put in place to stop amendments to certificates without proper justification.
TerraCom declined on Monday to comment further on the matter.
The Australian Federal Police said in a statement it had received a referral in relation to alleged fraudulent activities of TerraCom.
Police found that based on the material provided there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations and the matter was referred to Australia's corporate regulator.
(Reporting Melanie Burton in Melbourne and Nikhil Kurian Nainan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Richard Pullin)
