RE:FT going after some of you guys Here is the NR
Alabama Graphite forum posters targeted in court case
Alabama Graphite Corp (C:ALP)
Shares Issued 131,507,030
Last Close 11/18/2016 $0.11
Friday November 18 2016 - Street Wire
by Mike Caswell
Newsletter writer Fabrice Taylor has filed a petition in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. seeking to identify those behind what he claims are a series of defamatory on-line posts. He says that Stockhouse users called him and an associate "slimeballs" and accused him of securities fraud. Mr. Taylor claims that the remarks began after he raised questions about a TSX Venture Exchange company, Alabama Graphite Corp.
The allegations are contained in a petition that Mr. Taylor filed at the Vancouver courthouse on Nov. 14, 2016. In it, Mr. Taylor identifies himself as a columnist for the Globe and Mail and the publisher of an investment newsletter called the President's Club. He operates through a private entity called Dreadnought Communications Inc.
The problems, as described by Mr. Taylor, go back to 2014, when he bought shares in Alabama Graphite. It appears that the investment was uneventful until mid-2015, when the company appointed a new chief executive officer, Donald Baxter. A few months after the appointment, Mr. Taylor began questioning Mr. Baxter on how and where he was spending the company's money. Shortly after, the defamatory comments that he complains of began appearing in Stockhouse, especially on the Alabama Graphite forum.
One set of comments that Mr. Taylor quotes came from a user called "Jihadist." Among other things, the posts stated, "If you pay for Fabrice Taylor's 'expertise' and then invest from his ideas, he is partly responsible for screwing up your wealth as he and Durkacz destroy companies for their own financial gain." Another message read, "The people that participated are Fabrice Taylor and Anthony Durkacz, among other slimeballs. Destroy enough companies for pennies per share adds up to a pretty good profit."
Yet another post from Jihadist referred to a potential complaint to the B.C. Securities Commission. It read: "You guys are pathetic and transparent. It will be such a pleasure when the British Columbia Securities Commission gets the two of you up on Securities Fraud. Perhaps you will be able to bunk together."
Another user, called "The_Guru," posted comments in a similar vein on July 14 and July 20, 2016. Comments in those posts, as quoted in the petition, read, "I got a reply from the BCSC for my complaint against these two leaches" and "these are the guys that need reported to the Ontario Securities Commission for stock fraud and manipulation."
In addition to those two users, Mr. Taylor complains of material that appeared under aliases "CarbonBlack" and "flakesRbetter." A post by flakesRbetter included a comment stating that "AD and FT are the bad STD that won't go away because we were whored about by previous management." CarbonBlack linked to other material that Mr. Taylor considers defamatory, the petition states.
While Mr. Taylor does not say who is behind all of the posts, he points the finger at least partly at Alabama Graphite. One of the users he is seeking to identify, CarbonBlack, may be the company's vice-president of investor relations, Ann-Marie Pamplin, he claims. During a trade show she told a former Alabama Graphite shareholder that she used the name "Carbon Black" on Stockhouse.
The posts that Mr. Taylor complains of are no longer available on Stockhouse, the website having deleted them at Mr. Taylor's request. He says that the messages are particularly concerning, as he earns his living based on his public image and reputation. The distribution of the posts to a larger audience would damage his reputation and cause economic harm, he claims.
According to the petition, Stockhouse declined to identify the users responsible. Mr. Taylor is asking for a court order that would force the site to provide identifying information, with that information to include the IP addresses of their computers. Without such a court order, it will be impossible to identify the users, Mr. Taylor says.
Alabama Graphite is mentioned many times in the petition, but the company is not a respondent in the case.
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