Judge keeps parts of Fortescue’s Element Zero evidence secret but says Andrew Forrest emails will be revealed

A judge has promised that emails involving Fortescue executive chair Andrew Forrest will be revealed as she imposed limited secrecy over a legal attack on former workers.

While reassuring a senior media lawyer who feared “overreach” in Fortescue’s latest secrecy push, Justice Brigette Markovic said the green iron aspirant now wanted just two redactions in emails linked to Mr Forrest.

“As will become evident, Dr Forrest is involved in a number of emails that have gone backwards and forwards,” the Federal Court judge said after saying the non-redacted material would become publicly available.

Those emails from December 2020 disclosed the Fortescue founder’s questions about potential partners and testing sites in the early stages of the iron ore miner’s battle to transform itself into a green powerhouse.

Fortescue had originally sought sweeping suppression orders over evidence it tendered in May while secretly gaining controversial search orders to raid the homes of Fortescue Future Industries scientists Bart Kolodziejczyk and Bjorn Winther-Jensen.

Fortescue also gained orders to raid Malaga units from their new minerals processing technology company Element Zero as part of hotly-contested claims they used FFI’s green iron technology to get a head start over their former employer.

Fortescue’s limited secrecy application was heard on Thursday ahead of the court dealing with a push by the Element Zero players to overturn the search orders and have all seized material returned.

The original secrecy application covered 600 pages of private investigator reports filed by Fortescue in May after it had teams watch the homes and families of its former scientists for almost three weeks.

The secrecy push was honed to focus on private emails and home addresses and what Fortescue claimed was commercially sensitive material, including the identity of potential suppliers and partners in its green iron aspirations.

Media lawyer Grant McAvaney, representing The Australian newspaper, said it was difficult to deal with the Fortescue application because he had not seen the material subject to the secrecy push.

Mr McAvaney said he might be approaching the issues from “a certain, arguably cynical view” but he could not see why there should be suppression orders over references to Mr Forrest “being involved in a conversation”.

Justice Markovic then read out part of a December 22, 2020, email where the location of potential customers was identified in a sentence that began by saying “once NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) are signed, ore will be shipped to”.

She suppressed that part of the December 22, 2020 email and material that is described on the next page as the “we have told Andrew” paragraph.

Fortescue barrister Wen Wu said this paragraph disclosed the group’s commercial intentions because it contained production targets and its thinking on expenditure.

Justice Markovic said she understood that Mr McAvaney did not want conversations between Dr Forrest and his employee shielded without a legal basis.

But she ruled the two redactions sought by Fortescue fell from the December 22, 2020 evidence was within the court’s powers to suppress.

The judge suppressed dozens of other parts of affidavits based on Fortescue’s claims of commercial confidentiality but questioned many of the claims and rejected some.

The Element Zero application to overturn the search and seizure orders will be heard on August 18 and August 19.