A former National Australia Bank (NAB) financial planner has brought defamation proceedings against Fairfax Media, following the publication of a series of articles alleging misconduct on his part.
Court documents listed, ex-NAB planner, Graeme Cowper as the plaintiff, with Fairfax Media Publications Pty Limited, The Age Company Limited, Adele Ferguson, Ruth Williams and Jeff Morris named as defendants.
The matter, which went before the Supreme Court of NSW for rulings on imputations related to an email sent by Ferguson to Julia Quinn, the director of media and community relations at AMP – where Cowper was employed at the time – and articles published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, which included allegations of forgery and other misconduct against a number of former NAB advisers, and a second “discrete and specific article” relating to Cowper’s dealings with a particular client.
Court papers revealed that Ferguson summarised certain information she then held in relation to Cowper, reporting that she understood that his employment at NAB had been “terminated due to reconstruction of client files”, and requested the opportunity to “put a few questions to him” ahead of an article in which he would be named.
Cowper has sought to include within the scope of damage for which the defendants might be liable any re-publication by Quinn of the sense and substance of Ferguson’s email.
Counsel for the defendants submitted that there was not enough evidence to support an allegation of republication of the email, however Justice Lucy McCallum said, “I do not think it is fair to characterise the contention of republication in the present case as a bare guess”.
Justice McCallum, accepted that while the two articles referred to were “effectively presented in two separate pieces”, one dealing with allegations against a number of unnamed former NAB planners and a second article focusing on Cowper specifically that did not include allegations of forgery on his part, that in her opinion, “there is enough in the whole of the material sued on to conclude that that is an issue which must be left to the jury”.
