Lawyers for Mineral Resources CEO Chris Ellison are seeking to maintain sweeping gag orders on documents from his settled legal dispute with a former contracts boss, despite media objections. The case, which involved allegations against Ellison and the company, was largely shrouded in secrecy until recently.
Lawyers for Mineral Resources ’ chief Chris Ellison have argued the Federal Court should maintain sweeping gag orders over documents filed in his now-settled row with a former contracts boss, despite staunch opposition from the media. The documents are central to the two-year court row MinRes, its billionaire owner and ex-contracts boss Steven Pigozzo had been fighting on several fronts until July, when a peace deal brought it to an abrupt end.
While a string of allegations had been republished by the media, much of the case had been covered by suppression orders at the request of Ellison’s legal team – which were broadened when both parties asked that more than 16 legal documents be permanently removed from the file post-settlement. But the move was halted in August after Nine Publishing, the owner of this masthead, applied to intervene. During a seven-hour hearing on Tuesday, executive counsel for this masthead Larina Alick told the court the orders sought were futile given the volume of information already in the public domain. Alick also argued the onus should be on Ellison’s lawyers to persuade the court that the ongoing veil of secrecy trumped the principles of open justice, particularly amid the publicity surrounding the ASX-listed company“In my submission, this is a clear attempt to whitewash the court file,” Alick told the court. “There’s no need to perfect the court file, to remove documents that one party asserts should never have been filed.“There are judgments published about allegations that were pleaded but found to be scandalous … telling the world what those allegations were and why they were wrongly made – there’s no reason this case and these respondents should be treated differently.” Alick pointed out the difficulty faced by media organisations without access to the restricted documents, who could find themselves unknowingly in breach of the orders if the substance of the claims was sourced by other mean
Mineral Resources Chris Ellison Legal Dispute Gag Orders Media Freedom
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