Magnis seeks court order to reveal HotCopper users’ identities
Tom RichardsonMarkets reporter and commentator
Jul 27, 2022 – 3.53pm
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ASX-listed battery manufacturing group Magnis Energy Technologies has lodged a federal court application demanding penny stock message board HotCopper disclose the identity of 15 anonymous posters it believes disparaged the company.
The July 22 application against HotCopper operator Report Card Pty Ltd seeks an order to force HotCopper to disclose the full name and address of each poster in addition to email addresses, any internet protocol (IP) address, the internet service provider, and any social media accounts linked to the HotCopper accounts.
Magnis Energy Technologies aims to build battery manufacturing plants in Townsville and New York. Supplied
Magnis refused to comment on the court application, although it’s believed the company is furious over what it sees as a series of malicious and false statements anonymously posted to HotCopper message boards about Magnis’ management and operating performance.
Some posters named in the court application use anonymous HotCopper accounts, including Mondrian, Fritzl, Clare69, Rat1973, Sunrock, and Johnyb26. The Market Herald, parent company of HotCopper, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to court documents, the lawyer for HotCopper operator Report Card agreed to provide the identification details of the posters in compliance with any court order. However, by July 22, K&L Gates, the lawyers for Magnis, sent further correspondence reiterating the identification request and putting Report Card on notice.
Magnis’ chairman Frank Poullas is named as an applicant in the court request as seeking to pursue a defamation claim.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission has previously made inquiries with Magnis over the trading of its shares. In November 2021, the company issued an ASX statement in response to media coverage denying it was being investigated by ASIC, but conceded inquiries had been made.
The battery tech play reached a share price high of 73¢ on a market value of around $714 million on December 11 as retail investor enthusiasm for anything associated with lithium or electric vehicles peaked, but the stock had crashed back to 31¢ on Wednesday.
Magnis owns New York-based company Imperium3, which it says operates a lithium-ion battery manufacturing project. For the nine months to March 31, it reported zero revenue and an operating cash loss of $17.9 million. Investing cash outflows totalled $23.6 million, with the company reporting cash on hand of $81.8 million as at March 31.
Nowhere to hideIn June 2019 penny stock mining company Flinders Mines successfully obtained an order from the Supreme Court of Western Australia to force HotCopper to disclose the identity of individual posters on the basis the posters had made allegedly defamatory comments against Flinders Mines stakeholders.
The case highlighted that HotCopper’s terms and conditions contained provisions that stated it would maintain information about each user’s real identity.
On June 7 ASIC announced **riel Govinda, a HotCopper poster using anonymous online identity Fibonarchery, had pleaded guilty to 23 charges of unrelated stock manipulation and 19 charges of illegal dissemination of information relating to manipulation.
ASIC said the charges were in relation to HotCopper posts and Mr Govinda now faces a maximum penalty of 10 years’ jail, alongside a fine up to $765,000.
On June 5, the Federal Court of Australia ordered Twitter to disclose the identity of anonymous account @PRGuy17 so Melbourne-based social commentator Avi Yemini could pursue a defamation action against him.
While former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro was awarded $715,000 on June 6 in defamation damages from YouTube-owner Google, after a user named Jordan Shanks posted multiple videos defaming Mr Barilaro.
The case saw Justice Steven Rares reject Google’s arguments that it should not be liable as a publisher because it did not create the content. Legal commentators have suggested both Google and Twitter will now move faster to censor user content in Australia.
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