Inside The Global-Mark Certification Protection Racket

WHITE COLLAR CRIME. Now we know why Global Mark were in such a rush to certify the ex-Forestry Tasmania plantations. Some of the plantation estate were trees planted by Gunns on public land and allegedly stolen from mum and dad investors. Read the real story here.
More here.
Trevor is persistent.

Business certification group Global-Mark (GM) was founded in 2004 by French mechanical engineer Herve Michoux. By 2018 Global-Mark was certifying the entire Tasmanian logging industry as well as many other programs including plumbing, fire safety, training etc. GM are now players in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Herve Michoux

Herve Michoux made GM into a multinational company. GM are certifying Chinese manufactured products and have an office in Europe. Herve started the National Standards Development Organisation in Australia and has become a success story since arriving here 30 years ago.

The certification merry-go-round
Certification companies like GM are in turn certified by 'accreditation companies' such as Jas-ANZ  Responsible Wood and ASI who are responsible to the standard owners who are only responsible to themselves. For example, FSC claim to promote responsible management of forests, yet when have humans been able to manage anything responsibly, including themselves? These certification systems are just products without any legal basis and without real accountability.

Certification is a corporate protection racket in our view. It has replaced ethical and moral values and what was once called 'goodwill' with a lot of meaningless ticks and logos traded as commodities. Certification creates an official looking smokescreen behind which corruption can flourish.

Nepotism at Global-Mark


We found 5 people at Global-Mark with the surname 'Michoux'.  Benoit Michoux is probably Herve's brother and runs the French connection.

We believe Herve's wife Maria and daughters Laurent and Meilyn all work for GM at the North Ryde office.
It seems nepotism has spread to the staff with Tasmanian auditor Wayne Tibbits doing certification visits with alleged relative 'Jonathan Tibbits'. GM should award themselves a certificate for nepotism.

Certification fraud at Global-Mark

While investigating an alleged forged letter published by GM in relation to Reliance Forest Fibre, we discovered GM had issued multiple certificates to a company that legally didn't exist. Reliance Forest Fibre (RFF) was registered in the Cayman Islands in 2017, specifically to buy publicly-owned eucalypt plantations from the Tasmanian government. RFF then bought woodchip exporter Smartfibre and registered the entity with ASIC on March 16 2018. Unbelievably, Global-Mark published a full set of certificates online on March 6 2018 before RFF trading as Smartfibre had legally come into existence.

 

Global-Mark issued a set of certificates to RFF on March 6 which is the 'Certificate Last Update Date' and also the 'document creation date' in the document properties. That was 10 days before Reliance Forest Fibre trading as Smartfibre had became a legal trading entity in Australia. The set of fraudulent certificates is available here. 
In May Global-Mark issued the same set of certificates to RFF with different dates on them. They are on the GM website. 
GM also issued the same set of certificates to the previous owners of Smartfibre.
It's not possible to certify a company that doesn't exist so we call it 'fraud'. 

Why did this happen?
GM refused our requests for comment, so we can only surmise what they were doing: When large US corporation Global Forest Partners entered the Tasmanian logging industry using front company RFF, the cash registers were ringing so loudly at Global-Mark they failed to cover their tracks. What happened next shows why their certification is a scam, but it tells a deeper story.

In the 'gold standard' FSC system, we observed that resources and geographic sites rather than 'forest managers' and trading entities are being certified. Forestry companies change hands regularly and the Australian FSC system simply 'warehouses' certificates until a new owner appears and begins paying the certification fees. Certification is more about cash flow than standards or ethics. Certification fees are expensive with Global-Mark currently charging $2,000 per auditor day and $250 per hour for reviews.

The fees are a tax deduction for logging companies but in Tasmania they also buy you an auditor like Dr Wayne Tibbits. Tibbits is a logging insider with an alleged history of modifying eucalyptus trees. Tibbits failed to answer a series of questions pertaining to engineered trees and the FSC controlled wood standard in July 2018.
We tried a number of times to obtain a comment from Global-Mark and Dr Tibbits with no response. For this reason we do not engage in the FSC system or the other 'cash for certificates' schemes. FSC regards a palm oil plantation as a 'forest' when it is a 'crop'. The GM-certified plantations in Tasmania are crops not forests. This is why FSC is a fake system.

Corruption

Convict-based Tasmania is built on corruption. Their standard method is to use taxpayer funds to establish plantations, harvesting, freight subsidies etc, and then 'privatise' the profits through a company controlled by a 'mate'. The RFF-Tasmanian government deal follows this blueprint exactly. The corrupt Tasmanian government regularly awards contracts to companies that don't exist. Global-Mark knew they could fraudulently certify a non-existent company and get away with it. GM should certify their own corruption.
 

The Global-Mark tragedy unfolding in Tasmania.
The state flower of Tasmania is eucalyptus globulus or 'bluegum'. The flowers are the main food source of critically endangered swift parrots. Tasmania can have up to 100,000 hectares of bluegum plantations at any time, but thanks to people like Wayne Tibbits and Herve Michoux no parrots will ever feed in these plantations because the trees are sterile. Tibbits knows exactly why that is but refuses to talk about it. We doubt if Michoux has even been to Tasmania or ever been in an Australian native forest.

Global-Mark does not certify real bluegums like these

Tasmanians have learned that to get offside with this corrupt industry can have fatal consequences. Environmentalists have been murdered in Tasmania allegedly by the logging-obsessed government. Today, huge swathes of the island have been transferred to foreign forestry funds, all registered in tax havens. Australian-owned companies are minor players because the margins on woodchips to Asia are pathetically low making tax avoidance mandatory. GM should issue certificates for tax avoidance.

The only market for Tasmanian woodchips is Asia but the Asian market is also degrading the quality of life of every person and unborn person on the planet due to climate change. 
Michoux is certifying everything except the future of the planet, which is obviously insignificant to him or GM. They should issue certificates for pushing China's population over 2 billion people.

Tree plantations provide almost no employment for decades. So why is Herve Michoux's system locking-up Tasmania and transferring it to foreign ownership? Would Michoux do that to France or is he exploiting the low-IQ of Australian politicians? Global-Mark should issue certificates for destroying the Australian economy.

Michoux and Tibbits have inflicted a loss-loss situation onto Tasmania, Australia and the rest of the planet. The allegedly corrupt, self-serving, nepotic and anti-Australian operatives at Global-Mark financially benefit from degrading the quality of life for all Australians. The GM hypocrites charge hundreds if not thousands of companies for 'compliance' while they fail to comply with any ethical standards at all. Corporate certification is similar to the derivatives products that caused the last financial meltdown. How about a certificate for immoral corporate behavior?

If you are in business anywhere in the world don't waste your time and money on fake certification schemes peddled by Global-Mark.

Overpopulation, climate change and collapsing ecosystems will force human beings back to a simpler way of life. People will demand basic goods and services rather than imaginary products. Australian Aborigines lived here sustainably for 50 thousand years but now we have 'managed mass extinctions' often certified by GM. Australian forests evolved over millennia with no 'foresters' and with no infantile certification ticks peddled by corporate parasites like Global-Mark.