Vulcan pushes to keep lawsuit papers secret

From todays AFR - it's behind the paywall so...

Under-siege lithium hopeful Vulcan Energy Resources is pushing to maintain secrecy over documents it has filed in court as part of its lawsuit against research firm J Capital.

Bennett + Co principal Martin Bennett, who is representing Vulcan Energy, told the Federal Court on Tuesday that the national media should not be able to access the company’s court applications or statement of claim, which would detail the grounds on which the firm was suing J Capital.

Mr Bennett said Vulcan Energy believed ‘‘it and its shareholders have been the subject of a short-and-distort campaign, and the publicity of these matters is likely to add to the impact on the market of that campaign’’.

He said Vulcan chief executive Francis Wedin, chairman Gavin Rezos, chief operating officer Thorsten Weimann and co-founder Horst Kreuter had sued ‘‘for defamation and are concerned that the publicity of the matters contained in the statement of claim gives currency to the defamations’’ allegedly made by J Capital and its principal, Tim Murray.

‘‘Ordinarily, there would be methods that should be made for some confidentiality to be maintained, rather than give further currency to a defamation,’’ Mr Bennett said.

Justice Craig Colvin noted that members of the media had been trying to access the documents related to the lawsuit, which was filed in the Federal Court this month.

‘‘And you would press the position that there oughtn’t be access to those documents?’’ Justice Colvin asked, to which Mr Bennett responded: ‘‘Yes.’’

Lawyers representing Mr Murray and J Capital did not argue either way for public access to the documents.

The Federal Court has banned J Capital from sharing its critical report of ASX-listed Vulcan Energy, whose share price has increased by 6000 per cent since a backdoor listing in 2019.

Vulcan disputes the allegations made in a J Capital report, which claims the Perth-based company has used overly optimistic and conflicted inputs in a pre-feasibility study for its plans to mine geothermal brine in the Upper Rhine region of Germany for lithium.

Vulcan shares have fallen about 30 per cent since J Capital released a report late last month titled Vulcan – God of Empty Promises.

Bennett + Co has applied to the Federal Court in Western Australia under consumer protection laws that protect against misleading or deceptive conduct.

Yesterday, Justice Colvin extended orders that prevent J Capital from discussing or republishing anything to do with Vulcan’s rebuttal to the research firm’s original claims that were posted publicly to the ASX this month, or anything related to the Vulcan executives named in the court application.

However, Justice Colvin said he would shortly allow media to make written submissions arguing their case to access the court documents.

Justice Katrina Banks-Smith last week ordered that the court suppress transcripts of a hearing related to the case last Monday, and that no document lodged or filed in the case be made available to the public without leave of the court.

In his original report, released after market trading on November 26, Mr Murray questioned the claims that the lithium market darling could develop and harness geothermal power in the Rhine Valley to produce lithium hydroxide using unproven commercial lithium electrolysis processing technologies.

Vulcan rejects the J Capital report. ‘‘The report contains many claims that are wrong and misleading. Vulcan categorically rejects the claims contained in the report,’’ the company noted in its 11-page response.