Adani forced to apologise after defaming activist

An anti-coal activist has fought and won a defamation dispute with mining giant Adani.

Scott Daines has been awarded $2000 in damages and Adani has publicly apologised for making false claims about him on their Facebook page.

Adani falsely alleged that Mr Daines and other peaceful activists from Frontline Action on Coal threw rocks at Adani workers’ cars and kicked car doors during a protest in October.

Adani released the defamatory statement and false accusations shortly after the activists captured footage of an Adani security guard charging at and assaulting a camera operator at the protest.

Mr Daines issued Adani a formal concerns notice under Queensland’s Defamation Act.

He sought a retraction of Adani’s defamatory social media post and a public apology. Adani’s lawyers, from the firm Ashurst, wrote back to Mr. Daines agreeing to his demands and to pay damages.

However, Adani misled its lawyers and instead of posting the apology on the facebook page the original post first appeared on, which has 37,000 followers, Adani first posted the apology on a secret and obscure facebook page with just 50 followers.

It then tried to claim that as this was now the Adani Australia facebook page, and that it no longer had a duty to act.

Mr Daines continued to pursue Adani for further costs and for the coal miner to post their apology on the page that the original defamatory post was first published.

Daines wrote to Adani’s lawyers Ashurst claiming Adani had ‘duped the firm’ by providing them with false information about the history and status of their social media accounts in an attempt to hide the apology from the public.

Scott Daines is continuing to pursue Adani for further damages for the delay in publishing the apology and wrote to Adani’s lawyers Ashurst on January 29th accusing Adani of being ‘devious and untruthful…demonstrating the lowest standards of corporate behaviour’ and being ‘motivated by malice’.