AWB's deals with Iraq and its downfall

THE RISE AND FALL OF AWB

* Australian Wheat Board had monopoly over international trade in Australian wheat from 1939

* By 1999, marketing and transfer functions transferred to grower-owned AWB Group. AWB Ltd heads that structure, lists on stock market 2001

* UN imposes sanctions after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait

* UN oil-for-food program runs 1997 to 2003

* AWB wins wheat sales with Iraqi Grain Board

* Iraq is AWB's biggest or close to biggest customer

* Sales worth more than $500 mln a year

* Unknown to its international competitors, AWB accepts lower price than revealed in contracts

* Inflated by sham, so-called `inland transportation' and `after-sales service fees'

* Payments always made via intermediary based in Jordan, linked to Iraqi authorities

* AWB then obtains funds from UN escrow account

* AWB pays $US223 million in those fees to intermediary company Alia between July 1999 and March 2003

* AWB in effect becomes exporter of wheat and cash, ASIC says

* UN oil-for-food program ends after coalition forces invade Iraq in 2003

* Cole inquiry in 2006 finds AWB knowingly made secret payments to Saddam Hussein regime

* AWB taken over by Canadian company Agrium in 2010

* Former chairman Trevor Flugge and former group general manager trading Peter Anthony Geary face 10-week civil trial for allegedly breaching their duties as officers

* Maximum penalty: Fines up to $200,000 and disqualification from managing a corporation.