McSpotlight note:

The article below describes a highly controversial court case launched in December in Australia. A massive woodchip/logging company, Gunns Ltd, is hoping to intimidate and suppress a widespread campaign which is successfully exposing their environmentally-damaging practices. Parallels were immediately made throughout Australia with the McLibel case, which has had extensive and positive coverage there over the last 10 years.

The legal charges that the Gunns 20 are fighting back against are about the growing campaigns and protests to protect forests under threat from Gunns, including (according to the writ):

(i) Logging operations disruption campaigns and actions at Lucaston, Hampshire, Triabunna and the Styx; (ii) Corporate vilification campaigns relating to the Burnie Woodchip site and the Banksia Awards; (iii) Campaigns against overseas customers of the Gunns, including customers in Japan and Belgium; and (iv) Corporate campaigns targeting shareholders, investors and Banks.

Gunns are claiming injunctions and $6m damages.

The 'Gunns 20' case has created uproar, with protests kicking off on Wednesday 15th Dec 2004 with rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane, a vigil outside Gunns retail and corporate headquarters in Launceston, and 700 people attending a protest in Hobart's Franklin Square.

A special website has been set up - inspired by the McLibel campaign and McSpotlight - to turn the tables on the company: www.mcgunns.com

As their home page says: ' While Tasmanian billion dollar Australian registered company Gunns Limited and its shareholders (including the Commonwealth Bank and AMP) bathe in record profits from woodchipping and vandalising Tasmania's native forests, poisoning its wildlife and spraying carcinogenic chemicals, it initiates legal action in Melbourne against ordinary Tasmanian mums and dads that dare to oppose the Gunns regime and who can't afford legal representation. '

Why not check it out, spread the word, and offer your support!

For a better world

- The McLibel Support Campaign, London

Some years ago, McDonald's sued two environmentalists for distributing a pamphlet critical of the food served by the fast-food chain.

The leaflets were distributed to only a few thousand people outside various McDonald's stores in Britain. McDonald's nonetheless took the case to court, in a trial that lasted 314 sitting days and cost more than £10 million.

The case generated a great deal of negative publicity for McDonald's. At the time the action began, the leaflet was out of production. Millions of extra copies were subsequently printed. The case inspired a book, a television mini-series and an internet site.

McDonald's was awarded £35,000, which it has never been able to collect. It is out of pocket millions of pounds in costs. The action gave the environmentalists a profile that they would not otherwise have had.

So the question arises, did McDonald's succeed in the action?

The McDonald's case came to mind when I read this week that the Tasmanian logging company Gunns Ltd had sued about 20 environmental campaigners. Gunns alleges "corporate vilification" and disruption to logging operations.

Gunns has taken on Greens leader Bob Brown, the Wilderness Society, Doctors for Native Forests and the Huon Valley Environment Centre, among others. These environmentalists are unlikely to be intimidated into an early settlement.

Brown says that the action is an attack on free speech. He is also likely to check whether it could be in contempt of Parliament. He would allege that the writ is seeking to intimidate him as a member of Parliament to moderate his stance on what he sees and many others see, as an important public issue.

Gunns had a difficult decision to make, to sue or not to sue. It is clearly at its wit's end. Allegations about risk to the health and safety of its employees, trespass, damage to property, obstructing access to logging sites, are all claims.

The website crikey.com.au says Gunns "has broken one of the major tenets of political warfare - don't give the opposition oxygen". That comment reminds one of the McDonald's experience.

Crikey.com.au also points out that in Tasmania, there is no sympathy for militant environmentalists. This action has the potential to gain sympathy for the not-so-militant environmentalists.

Actions like this are common in the United States. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that Ford Motor Company was threatening to sue environmental group Bluewater Network, which was publishing a print and internet campaign that depicted Ford's chairman and chief executive, Bill Ford, as Pinocchio. In February, Bluewater ran advertisements in various US publications that featured a drawing of Bill Ford with an extra-long nose, and the words: "Bill Ford Jr or Pinocchio? Don't Buy His Environmental Rhetoric. Don't Buy His Cars."

Ford's lawyers claimed that the personal attacks on Bill Ford were "gratuitous and offensive, well beyond the scope of responsible civil public dialogue, and strong evidence that (they) made the misrepresentations with malice".

Understandably, widespread media coverage ensued and Ford chose not to take its threat any further. There are plenty more examples closer to home, too.

In his 2004 book Slapping on the Writs, Melbourne barrister Brian Walters, SC, examines corporations' use, or threat, of legal action to silence critics.

One notorious example involved Barwon Water and a local residents group that opposed a plan to clear a local woodland to create a sewage farm. To spread the word, the group produced a bumper sticker which read: "Barwon Water - Frankly Foul." It was a punning reference to the authority's chairman, Frank De Stefano. At Barwon Water's expense, De Stefano sued the group claiming the sticker carried defamatory imputations. The group was not prepared to spend its time and money defending the case in court and settled the matter, in a manner that involved compensating De Stefano.

In this case, the mere threat of legal action was a successful tool for De Stefano. But one wonders whether the fight would have been as readily pursued in front of a media-packed court room. This issue is also of interest in light of the state and federal government proposals for uniform defamation laws.

It has long been argued that a corporation's right to sue for defamation should be restricted or abolished. In its proposal, the Federal Government argues that corporations should have a right to sue. However, the state and territory attorneys-general have endorsed a model that prevents the right of corporations to sue, with the exception of not-for-profit organisations.

However, individuals within corporations can still sue and may even be funded by their corporation. The decision for corporations, therefore, is whether to pursue the restoration of their reputation at the risk of further and widespread negative media publicity.

There is a need to carefully weigh up the potential upside against the potential downside.

Peter Bartlett is national head, media and communications group, of the law firm Minter Ellison  
 
related links  
 
- Friends of Gunns - www.gunns20.org
- Forest campaigners vow to fight Gunns
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- press cuttings: McLibel
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- press cuttings: McLibel film
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