PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Sandfire Resources has launched Federal Court proceedings against the Centre for Australian Ethical Research (CAER), claiming misleading research.
In October this year, the CAER conducted a review for the Australian National University (ANU) on companies in which the university had invested funding, providing the ANU with environmental, social and governance ratings on which to base its decision.
The review resulted in the ANU divesting of stocks in seven companies, including Iluka Resources, Independence Group, Newcrest Mining, Sandfire Resources, Oil Search, Santos and Sirius Resources.
Sandfire has maintained that the profile prepared by CAER contained a series of false, misleading and damaging claims concerning the company’s activities and policies with respect to the environment, corporate governance and stakeholder management.
Furthermore, Sandfire said that CAER did not consult it in the preparation of the October 2014 profile and that the consultants did not seek a response from the company with respect to the assertions and conclusions it contained.
The CAER has subsequently refused to rewrite the report, saying it “categorically stands by the research it supplied to the ANU”.
Sandfire has now instituted the legal proceedings against CAER over media releases made by the CAER post the report, claiming they contained representations which were misleading or deceptive concerning the research methodology and processes followed by CAER in preparing the profiles, as well as the accuracy and fairness of the profile it provided.
CAER has removed the relevant releases from its website.