Andrew Forrest over the top with ‘Hitleresque’ claims against Bart Kolodziejczyk and Bjorn Winther-Jensen

Andrew Forrest showed a lack of historical perspective equating the alleged behaviour of two former Fortescue scientists with the Nazi’s “burn all bridges” exit from Poland. Despite what Forrest told a HOTT operative this week, Fortescue’s disclosed claims against Polish-born Bart Kolodziejczyk and his Danish colleague Bjorn Winther-Jensen do not involve alleged conduct that could be described as “Hitleresque”. Documents released by the secret squirrels at the Federal Court outline a Fortescue case based on hotly-contested allegations and inferences that the scientists destroyed, copied or failed to save important research records before their departures. While gaining orders to raid the scientist’s home and their new venture Element Zero, Fortescue Energy senior legal counsel Adrian Huber claimed to have identified “confidential information taken and inferred to have been taken by Dr Kolodziejczyk and Dr Winther-Jensen” in late 2021. Sorry Twiggy, but there is nothing inferred about Nazi activities during their flight from Poland in late 1944 and January 1945. Which all makes the Bull fear that someone at Fortescue did not alert Forrest to a “cautionary note” that Justice John Logan gave all the litigants after the Element Zero crew kicked off its challenges to the raid orders. Justice Logan told the parties of the “need to be scrupulous in not misrepresenting, by way of any publicity, the subject matter of the litigation and the absolutely controversial position which presently prevails in respect of that subject matter”. It is understandable that the warning, might not have made its way up through the many layers of Fortescue to Forrest. It was in the last paragraph of a procedural judgment given in a closed court on May 30 and published on June 5. The Fortescue executive chairman was jetting around Europe and North Africa pursuing his green dream and making headlines after being photographed in Paris kissing a woman reported to be Moroccan energy minister Leila Benali. The great man only appears to have become publicly aware of the more contentious details of the case last week, including the 19-days of surveillance on the former scientists and their families. We look forward to more light being shed when the Fortescue versus Element Zero case is back before court on August 1. CITIC cleared for Komatsu claim You’d expect the Chinese group CITIC to know the Australian legal system backwards given its endless battles with royalties billionaire Clive Palmer over its Pilbara magnetite project. But CITIC had to hire top-shelf barristers Grant Donaldson and Konrad De Kerloy to ask the WA Supreme Court for mercy after stuffing-up litigation against heavy equipment supplier Komatsu over a fire in April 2018. CITIC’s Sydney lawyers filed its protective claim against the Japanese equipment maker’s Wisconsin-based subsidiary on April 19, just two days short of a likely six-year limit on litigation being launched over Komatsu wheel loader fire. But a court registrar confirmed in early May that he had rejected the writ. CITIC had failed to comply with rules that took effect on April 9 requiring parties to seek leave from the court to serve proceedings overseas. Fortunately, Donaldson and De Kerloy persuaded Justice Matthew Howard that CITIC’s writ be accepted by the court and served on Komatsu in its Milwaukee offices. Here’s hoping CITIC team wait until next week given city has been flooded with Secret Service agents, delegates, journalists, crackpot patriots, lobbyists, diplomats and various other hangers-on for the Republican National Convention, starring Donald Trump. Fortescue lost on littoral Back to Fortescue and final paragraphs apparently not being read. This time it was in a media release this week burying 700 jobs being scrapped and the integration its profitable mining and struggling energy divisions into One Fortescue. Team Twiggy boasted that the “streamlined” One Fortescue team will reflect the group’s board — “compromising of nearly 50 per cent women”. Compromising? There is no reason to believe there is anything particularly compromising for women at Fortescue, let alone almost half of the females on the payroll. We suspect they meant to say One Fortescue and the board will be “comprising nearly 50 per cent women”. That’s worth boasting about in an industry traditionally dominated by blokes. WA Labor hold candle for Payman Senator Fatima Payman was swiftly disowned by her former Labor colleagues in Canberrra last month, but the party’s website indicates the WA division still seems to holds a candle for the plucky pro-Palestine politician. The newly-independent was still listed on Friday as the Federal parliamentary party’s representative on the powerful administrative committee that runs Labor in WA, purportedly rubbing shoulders with former party president Carolyn Smith and Premier Roger Cook. We’re guessing Labor workers had been too busy dealing with CFMEU scandals and winter junkets to update the site. The page was updated late on Friday — despite a global computer outage — to reveal Senator Sue Lines had replaced Ms Payman on the committee.