A halal certifier wrongly accused a rival of being connected to Islamic extremism to secure the business of a major meat supplier, a Victorian court has found.
The Victorian county court ruled that the Islamic Co-ordinating Council of Victoria (ICCV) suffered from malicious or injurious falsehood when Midfield Meats cancelled a lucrative halal certification contract primarily because its managing director was told the Australian federal police were investigating the certifier for financing terrorism.
Judge Michael Macnamara found this week that the accusation was made by a representative of Australian Halal Authority and Advisers (AHAA), who then signed a contract with Midfield to replace ICCV.
ICCV made an average of almost $35,000 a month in revenue under the contract in the six months before it was cancelled, and the court heard it had a relationship with Midfield lasting about two decades. About 35% of this revenue was profit, the court heard.
In its statement of claim, ICCV said that between August and September 2023, Khalil Esfandiar, a shareholder in AHAA, made statements to Midfield that ICCV “was involved in the funding of Islamic extremist groups [and] was being investigated for possible criminal offences arising out of the funding of Islamic extremist groups”.
Macnamara said he was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Esfandiar made the false claims, and that they were the reason Midfield cancelled the contract.
He noted that Esfandiar was not called as a witness, and could have given direct evidence as to whether or not he made the allegation.
Macnamara said an email sent by Midfield’s managing director, Dean McKenna, underlined that the false claims were the main reason the contract was cancelled.
In early August 2023, McKenna had a phone conversation with Edin Dzelalagic, the chair of ICCV, about concerns that the company would not regain its certification to transport meat into Saudi Arabia, an important market for both companies.
“Dean McKenna … told me that he’s received information that we were funding extremist terrorist groups and that we’re under investigation by the federal police,” Dzelalagic told the court.
“And he said, ‘My team has freaked out and we’re all panicking’, or ‘we’re all stressed’, ‘We don’t know what to do’.
“[He said] this could tarnish and hurt his reputation and his company. And it could cause him damage to his business if this is true.”
Dzelalagic responded that the accusations were completely false, and asked where McKenna heard them. He responded from “Halil or Khalil”, Dzelalagic said.
Dzelalagic told McKenna to put his concerns in an email.
“I am told that ICCV will struggle to get relisted for a number of reasons with one being there is an investigation that ICCV may have funded extremist groups recently,” McKenna wrote in the email.
“My information comes from a reliable source hence I need to know clearly if there is any truth behind this rumour as if so this can effect our banking arrangements.
“To be very clear is ICCV being investigated for any alleged crimes by any authorities at all as I need a response in writing.”
Macnamara said that while McKenna was questioned at trial about “the source of the concerns about an alleged ICCV connection with Islamic extremism and an investigation into that matter”, McKenna said he was unable or unwilling to “name names”.
“On the basis of Mr McKenna’s demeanour and the evidence which he gave, I judged that he begrudged every minute that he spent in the witness box. He agreed,” Macnamara found.
“He remarked ‘this is a total waste of everyone’s time’.”
McKenna, who was described by the judge as the pivotal witness in establishing that the false claim was made by AHAA, said that the primary reason for Midfield’s concerns with ICCV was that it had not been responsive enough when millions of dollars’ worth of beef bound for Saudi Arabia was in dispute.
But Macnamara rejected this, saying there was no mention of it in the email. He also rejected McKenna’s suggestion that he typically liked to make such representations in person or on the phone as he had an aversion to putting matters in writing.
“I consider it has been established relatively exiguously, but adequately for the present purposes, that the allegations as to a connection between ICCV and Islamic extremism or an investigation into such matters (the cause of the breach between ICCV and Midfield) were imparted to Mr McKenna by Mr Khalil Esfandiar.
“The email shows that this was the dominant factor in Midfield’s decision to sack ICCV.”
Claims against Esfandiar and AHAA were upheld, but not against Esfandiar’s father. The loss and damages suffered by ICCV will be determined at a later date.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
