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By Alec Hogg
Throughout the past week, we received veiled threats of legal action from the heavyweight media lawyer acting for alleged Belvedere Ponzi scheme operators Cobus Kellermann and David Cosgrove. On Friday afternoon, those threats became a reality when Johan Theron of Werksmans called to say his clients demanded an immediate retraction otherwise we can expect to see them in court.
Much about the letter is strange. For one thing, before I even got to see the email, our partners at Fin24 had been called to say they had been “tipped off” about it. And even though Fin24 has republished most of our material on the saga, it did not receive a similar threat. Neither, for that matter, did David Marchant’s OffshoreAlert, which broke the story. Nor global financial services marketing group deVere which claims openly that Belvedere is operating a Ponzi scheme. Or, for that matter, CNBC Africa, where deVere repeated its allegation. Nope. Just Biznews.
This strategy of using the law to try silence the perceived softest target is nothing new.
It was used a few years back by defunct property syndicator Sharemax after it was exposed by the brilliant investigative journalist Deon Basson. Sharemax sued Basson in a personal capacity. Not the publications which carried his allegedly defamatory articles. Or his erstwhile employer.
That lawsuit took a terrible toll on Basson’s health, but the inspirational investigator never gave in. He kept on fighting it, right until his untimely, stress-related death in 2008. To keep their nefarious activities quiet, the Sharemax operators callously bought the rights to the unpublished manuscript about them which Basson had been working on when he died. Only years after his passing was the since liquidated Sharemax publicly exposed.
In the letter to Biznews on behalf of Kellermann and Cosgrove – republished below – their lawyer Johan Theron says our various articles are “extremely defamatory” of his now famous clients. He demanded a retraction by 22:00 on Friday evening, failing which “our clients will take appropriate legal action against you and your publication.”
On Sunday afternoon, Biznews.com’s attorney Edwin Jay responded as follows: “My client denies that he has made untrue and defamatory statements concerning your clients. Please provide me with a list of the defamatory statements that your clients demand that Mr Hogg retracts and the reasons therefore.
“My client has no qualm with sending articles concerning your client prior to publication for comment, provided that your clients respond within a reasonable time. We record that the first article was sent for comment and was published without comment as your clients failed to respond.”
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