Toronto-listed Northern Dynasty has hit back at Beijing-based short-seller J Capital Research’s (JCAP’s) report on the company, calling it “fatuous, flimsy and fundamentally self-serving”.

"We have heard and responded to the same baseless claims in JCAP’s ‘research’ report countless times since they were initially levelled by New York-based ‘short-and-distort' firm Kerrisdale Capital back in 2017," said Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen.

"Financial markets weighed and dismissed Kerrisdale's self-serving arguments then, and we are confident they will do so even more swiftly this time with these unoriginal allegations coming out of China."

Thiessen noted that the allegations in the Kerrisdale report formed the basis of several derivative shareholder actions against Northern Dynasty, which were ultimately dismissed by the courts for failure to state a cause of action.

JCAP’s report claims that Northern Dynasty's 100%-owned Pebble copper/gold/molybdenum/silver/rhenium project in south-west Alaska will lose money, that capital costs have been underestimated and that the project's proposed mining plan intentionally targets low-grade portions of the deposit.

"We will take an appropriate amount of time to review the report and the market's reaction to it, if any, as well as our options for protecting the company and our shareholders from these spurious claims," Thiessen said, noting the company may choose to issue a comprehensive response or may simply ignore what was intrinsically a self-serving attempt to profit by creating panic in the marketplace.

Thiessen advised investors to carefully read and consider the extensive disclaimers issued by JCAP, which confirm the authors have shorted Northern Dynasty stock and absolve them of any potential responsibility for the ‘opinions,' ‘inferences' and ‘deductions' in the report.

"We encourage our investors in the strongest possible terms not to reward this type of value destructive and irresponsible behaviour," he said.

Thiessen believes other parties engaged in market manipulation and short-selling have conspired to cost Northern Dynasty shareholders, large and small, some $500-million in recent months. He said there was little the company could do to prosecute or counter these illegal activities other than continuing to advance the Pebble project toward final permitting, construction and profitable operations.