Location rule fraud exposed

THE Federal Court of Australia has ordered that a company trust called Slopen Main belonging to pharmacist Ross Darnell must have its application to set up a pharmacy “set aside” with opposition from two pharmacies in Cove Hill Shopping Centre in Bridgewater near Hobart, namely Elizabeth Hope Priceline Pharmacy and Brighton Pharmacy.

The argument revolved around a “fraudulent” attempt to mislead the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority (ACPA) into granting a license to the trust enabling the establishment of a pharmacy in a temporary demountable building in the carpark of the shopping centre.

The position would have placed the new ͚pharmacy’ within 500 metres of one of the complainants and also flouted the shopping centre size ruling, claiming it was a large shopping centre with more tenants than are really there.

There was an attempt to suggest that the shopping centre had 15 shops when in fact it had fewer, along with a declaration that certain single shops had two separate market functions and that the centre also included a nearby strip set of shops.

Once approval had been granted for the demountable site, Darnell could have sought to relocate within the shopping centre and the ACPA would then have approved the small move.

Darnell’s company was ordered by Justice Kerr in the Court to pay the costs of the two pharmacies that exposed the “misleading information” in his plan saying: “as its sole director and shareholder I am satisfied that for all purposes Mr Darnell was and is the controlling mind of Slopen Main.”

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