The board of Flinders Mines is pursuing a defamation action against two dozen rebel shareholders who derailed the company’s delisting plans earlier this year.
The company also called in the police over what they say was the “harassment” of its directors during the heated campaign against the delisting, while Flinders itself is also looking to pursue the shareholders for injurious falsehood.
The Supreme Court of Western Australia this week granted orders requiring internet chat forum HotCopper to hand over the names, addresses and contact details for 23 users who made allegedly defamatory comments about Flinders’ directors on the website.
Lawyers acting for Flinders and its directors have also written to Melbourne man Alex Ilievski over material published on a separate “Friends of Flinders United” website that Flinders says was used “to facilitate a campaign of harassment” against the company and its board.
The letter says criminal offences may have been committed in the campaign and notes that they have made a report to police and the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network.
Claims of injurious falsehood are relatively rare, given they require plaintiffs to demonstrate not only that the accusations were false but that they were made maliciously and caused financial damage.
WA Supreme Court judge Rene Le Miere this week ruled he was “satisfied” that Flinders appeared to have a cause of action against the individuals.
The legal cases show that there is still plenty of bad blood between the Flinders board and much of its investor base, despite previous signs that the company was looking to move on from the delisting debacle.
Flinders last week announced that former WA politician Cheryl Edwardes had joined the company as a director and flagged a “new strategic path” to develop its flagship Pilbara iron ore project.
The delisting plans, announced late last year, sparked an extraordinary backlash from Flinders shareholders who believed the move would unfairly benefit Flinders’ major shareholder, New Zealand’s billionaire Todd family, at their expense.
Flinders formally withdrew the delisting plan in April.
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