Mars presence at MLA boardmeeting rankles stakeholders

Jon Condon 08/10/2012

MLA board-member Iain Mars

The presence of former JBS Australia chief executive, Iain Mars at this week’s Meat & Livestock Australia board meeting in Sydney has rankled some industry levy payers, who feel his new role working for a Brazilian company in Brazil now makes it inappropriate for him to sit-in on MLA board matters.

The prospect of Mr Mars attendance at this week’s MLA board meeting spread around the industry late last week, and was a popular topic of discussion at a bull sale attended by Beef Central on Friday.

As often happens, however, some of the facts got stampeded along the way.

Mr Mars was appointed to the MLA board for a three-year term in 2009, and was due to complete his term at November’s annual general meeting. He has already signalled that he would not be restanding for his board post, having left JBS earlier this year and having since accepting a new executive position with major Brazilian meat processor, Minerva.

Beef Central contacted MLA managing director Scott Hansen to seek clarification this morning.

He confirmed that Mr Mars would be in attendance at this week’s board meeting, but stressed that contrary to suggestions, Mr Mars would pay his own way to Australia, and would be able to claim normal domestic travel costs only.

“Mr Mars appointment to the board was in recognition of his skills around international marketing and international markets. While the circumstances have changed somewhat with his changing roles, he still retains and enormous amount of knowledge around those subjects, and others,” Mr Hansen said.

There was no direct linkage between who his employer might be, and the skills set he brought to the MLA board table, Mr Hansen said.

“All board directors, not only for MLA, are bound by requirements of the Corporations Act which imposes on them a duty to act in the best interests of the entity – in this case MLA, and the industry it serves.”

Mr Hansen said as standard practise, all MLA board papers are run through a process where they are checked against potential conflicts of interest among all board members. Even while he was still CEO of JBA Australia, there were occasions when Mr Mars would not receive certain board papers, because there was perceived conflict with his commercial activities.

“The same is applying now – there is simply a new filter on how that commercial interest test is applied, in his new role,” Mr Hansen said.  “We continue to apply good corporate governance around potential conflicts of interest, at board level.”      

The MLA board will meet briefly prior to next month’s annual general meeting in Fremantle. It is understood Mr Mars intends to return also, for that final meeting, and to sit-in on the AGM process.

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