CSR Building Products has come under renewed pressure as new allegations emerge in a Federal Court dispute over its insulation supply and pricing practices.
The French-owned building supply giant is accused of threatening a supplier to force acceptance of higher prices, according to a report in the Australian Financial Review. The report says the supplier was told adverse consequences could follow if it refused, a claim that goes beyond earlier complaints of steep price hikes and restricted supply.
The litigation was initiated by Consolidated Energy, a distributor of CSR’s Bradford Insulation, which filed proceedings alleging CSR misused its market power during 2021–22. Legal trade outlets have reported that the case centres on whether CSR prioritised its own installation arm while imposing extraordinary price rises on independent distributors.
CSR, now owned by French multinational Saint-Gobain following a $4.3 billion acquisition deal last year, has not publicly responded to the latest allegations and is yet to file a detailed defence in the proceedings. The company is one of Australia’s largest suppliers of building products and insulation.
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The AFR’s reporting builds on earlier developments in the case, which followed a preliminary discovery order made by Justice Nye Perram in September 2024. That order required CSR to produce board-level documents, internal communications and pricing data after Consolidated Energy sought to test whether a substantive claim could be launched.
The dispute highlights the growing focus on competition in Australia’s building materials sector, where tight supply chains and elevated costs have squeezed margins for builders and installers. For investors, the outcome could set an important precedent for how market power provisions — broadened under 2017 reforms to the Competition and Consumer Act — are applied in practice.