Interview on Solid Energy's legal action against activists

A video interview with Frances Mountier, an activist in the Save Happy Valley Coalition (SHVC), who was in court Wednesday July 25th after she was sued over her role in the production and distribution of a report into Solid Energy's environmental destruction in 2006.

The legal action taken by Solid Energy had changed considerably from when it was first launched. Proceedings against Powelliphanta Augustus Inc, who Solid Energy were trying to claim were representatives of the Save Happy Valley Coalition, were dropped prior to the hearing and Solid Energy reached an out-of-court settlement with a third defendant, Simon Oosterman, who runs Enzyme, which hosts the SHVC website. Solid Energy also dropped the original major causes of action - defamation & injurious falsehood - in favour of simply pursuing Frances Mountier for use of their trademarked logo.

On the morning of Thursday July 26, in the Christchurch High Court, the Judge ruled that the report could continue to be published, but the Solid Energy logo must be removed from the front page.

"The complete rehashing of this case to one of the use of logo on the front page by myself, when it started as full defamation proceedings against three defendants, simply shows how mistaken and outrageous those attempts to injunct publication of the report were. The whole case has highlighted how anxious this state owned coal miner is to avoid public criticism and debate on their activities" said Frances Mountier, "While defending this case has cost thousands of dollars of funds donated by supporters, we have been successful – the Environment Report can continue to be published in a substantially unaltered form."