The chairman of Australian mining group Continental Goldfields, John Stratton, said on Tuesday an application had been made to the Western Australian Court to have a legal action brought by South Africa’s Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD, DUR) group “knocked out”.
Stratton said in a statement that a media release given to the Australian media by DRD stated that he was the subject of legal action by DRD.
“In July of 2002 Mr Mark Wellesley-Wood (DRD’s CEO and chairman), through DRD, initiated two actions of claim against me in the Western Australia Supreme Court. In October 2002 after many attempts by Mr Wood’s lawyers to finalise their pleadings, they were rejected by the Master of the Court. In February of this year DRD again attempted to produce adequate pleadings.
“We have an application before the Supreme Court to also have this action knocked out; we will undoubtedly succeed,” Stratton stated.
He added that he had no doubt that the allegations against him were “because of my close relationship with the Kebble family and are part of Wellesley-Wood’s vendetta against them”.
“I consider this behaviour repulsive. Mr Wood asserts he has succeeded in winning claims amounting to many millions of rands. I am unaware of any successful claims made by Mr Wood against me or the Kebbles in any court in South Africa or Australia,” Stratton asserted.
He added that a matter of substantial concern to DRD shareholders, of which he was one, must be the extraordinary amount of money expended by DRD on its legal and other advisors.
“It would be bold of Mr Wood to assert that he has spent less than R50-million on this exercise in futility,” he added. – I-Net Bridge