Ann: Venus Commences Proceedings against Spectrum Metals Limited, page-139

Means, motive and opportunity. Strong ticks for all three is one given at this point.

If they used extra NDA covered info from VMS research and their planned offer details and timing were they super smart and trod very carefully?

Perhaps they just winked a few times at the pub and ate the evidence ...... or is there an email trail, gps evidence, internet trails, meeting minutes, recorded conversations of beery pub confessions?
In the modern world you can leave so much more evidence than in days gone by. Remains to be seen. But SPX could not know at this point what might emerge and there might be some sleepless nights waiting if wrong doing was done.