Fortescue has rejected Element Zero’s “implausible” claims that the start-up’s founder was instructed by the mining giant’s IP manager to access and delete certain documents after his resignation, as it defends allegations that search orders it won over the alleged misappropriation of its confidential information were based on weak evidence.
Start-up Element Zero has attacked search orders won by Fortescue over the alleged misappropriation of the mining company’s confidential information by three former employees, calling the orders an “industrial scale forensic debacle” won on weak evidence and the failure to disclose material information.
A judge appears reluctant to allow Element Zero to cross-examine an external lawyer hired by mining company Fortescue over alleged “egregious material non-disclosure” during Fortescue’s bid for “extreme and unorthodox” search orders against the green startup’s founders.
It would only have been possible for start-up Element Zero to deliver an operational green iron prototype in two years with its assumed funding with the help of a “substantial amount of information” on how the project should progress, metals giant Fortescue claims.
Mining company Fortescue, which alleges green iron startup Element Zero misused confidential information, is fighting a bid to cross-examine its external lawyer as part of an application to quash search orders.
Seeking to quash search orders won by metals company Fortescue against former employees who founded a green iron rival, a lawyer for the start-up has said three terabytes of data were indiscriminately copied, including confidential, privileged and irrelevant material.
Metal mining company Fortescue hired private investigators to spy on former employees who created green iron start-up Element Zero, sifting through their mail, taking photos of their children and following them to Kmart, a court has heard.
A judge has rejected Samsung Bioepis’ bid to discover research and development documents from Pfizer as it seeks to invalidate the drug giant’s patent for its blockbuster autoimmune drug Enbrel, agreeing with Pfizer that it may be “no more than an exercise in fishing”.
Start-up Element Zero claims Fortescue did not disclose material information to the court when it obtained search orders in its case alleging “industrial scale misuse” of the mining company’s confidential information.
Fortescue has brought legal action against start-up Element Zero and three former employees, alleging “industrial scale misuse” of the Western Australian mining company’s confidential information.