afr: cudeo lawsuit puts the heat on hotcopper, page-6

Gold Coast Businessman Wayne McCrae has cast an icy chill across the nation`s chat rooms:

Reports Neil Chenoweth page 6 Weekend AFR

As legal battles go it promises the excruciating appeal of fox hunting - the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Or perhaps the unmineable chasing the insufferable.

In a week in which the sharemarket has wiped out nearly 60 percent of the market value of his struggling Gold Coast based explorer CuDeco chairman Wayne McCrae declared war on the often raucous online chat forum for investors HotCopper.

On Monday after putting it`s shares in a 2 day trading halt CuDeco told the sharemarket it had instructed it`s lawyers to sue HotCopper and two unnamed individuals who posted comments on the site for "misleading and deceptive conduct" and "injurious flashood".

The announcement had an immediate chilling effect on the discussion of CuDeco - not only on HotCopper but also on rival sites Topstox and Scare Scene.
This might have saved McCrae some blushes on Wednesday when CuDeco revealed that after four years and more than 240,000 metres of drilling, and endless promises, its copper deposit seems even smaller than in 2006.

The online modesty did not save the Cudeco share price , which dropped 55 per cent, wiping nearly $400 million from the market value.
Leagal action against people who make anonoymous comments on the online forums is not new.

Last February Perth company Datamotion Asia Pacific won $30,000 damages plus costs against a HotCopper poster, Graeme Gladman of Colac.

What has the online forums worried in this case is that CuDeco is pursuing HotCopper as well as the posters.
"While I am not aware of the specifics..... I don't see how a forum provider can be charged with defamation, Topstoxs founder John Christian says.
"To me , its like suing Telstra when someone is using their network to stalk you, or suing the manufacturer of a particular gun if someone shoots you".

HotCopper suspended its CuDeco forum and reopened it only after purging all previous posts on the company.
CuDeco's announcement that it was taking legal action did not identify the posts or the posters it found objectionable.

Speculation was rife over who was being targeted. A HotCopper poster under the nickname Peter Pumpkinhead wrote "Someone on the thread has suggested that I might be the target. I can't confirm that. I will say that if an action were brought against me then I would defend it vigorously. Otherwise, no comment".

Any court case can be expected to unmask not just the posters but also the identities of a host of colourful characters who in earlier years made CuDeco one of the wilder forums on HopCopper.

These include a fiercely supportive poster who was subsequently hired by CuDeco, and "Gorilla" who claimed to live on the Gold Coast and to have special insight into McCrae's thinking. Another poster who was always quick to point to any announcement by the company was pictured with her husband arm and arm with McCrae.

Is McCrae thin-skinned? He once said brokers sceptical of his grand claims for CuDeco had "testicles smaller than ants".
He included a photograph of ants in the annual report in case anyone had missed the subtle message.
Its a way he has with critics.