No name is no defence
PUBLISHED : 11 Mar 2010 03:00:00 | Ainslie Chandler
DataMotion has successfully sued a chat room user for defamation, despite his use of a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Using an alias, or posting comments anonymously in a chat room, has been proven to provide no defence against defamation claims, with a small Perth company winning a suit against a user of the HotCopper investment website.
The finding comes as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission shelves its year-long investigation into "rumourtrage" - the spreading of rumours to shift share prices. Only one broker was banned during the course of the investigation.
Australian Securities Exchange-listed IT group DataMotion Asia Pacific launched defamation actions against three contributors to the website, following comments made about company managing director Ronald Moir.
The cases started after DataMotion obtained a court order forcing HotCopper's owner to reveal information about the identities of the people posting the comments.
In what is thought to be the first Australian case of its kind, Melbourne's Graeme Gladman has agreed to pay $20,000 in damages to DataMotion and Moir and $10,000 in court costs.
He has also given an undertaking to apologise and to promise not to make any further defamatory posts.
"The terms of use of websites and online discussion forums - such as HotCopper - generally include provisions prohibiting users to engage in certain conduct, including posting defamatory material," says DataMotion's solicitor, Martin Bennett, who is general counsel at Lavan Legal.
"Although operators of such sites may act responsibly in response to defamation complaints by removing offending material, the damage has been done and often has a lingering effect."
Defamation cases against David Norris and George Moore are unresolved.
DataMotion is also embroiled in a battle for control, with a big shareholder and corporate raider Bob Roget calling for Moir to stand down.
DataMotion was suspended from trading for failing to lodge its half-year report on time.
BRW
Ainslie Chandler
ContributorSydney
Ainslie Chandler is an award-winning journalist who covers the residential and commercial property sectors for the Australian Financial Review. She has been a writer for close to a decade, working for several regional newspapers before joining The West Australian, where she was commercial property editor. She joined BRW in 2008 after a stint in London as finance editor at Mining Journal. Ainslie holds a BA in mass communication from Curtin University and was a 2009 fellow of the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre.