The Queensland Supreme Court struck down portions of the group’s case against environmental activist Ben Pennings. While the case remains in the court, it has been significantly watered down. The group has until February of next year to appeal the disallowed sections of the case.

“I’m extraordinarily relieved that after four and a half years the judge has thrown out a number of allegations that we’ve always argued were spurious and anti-democratic … against a peaceful protester,” Pennings was quoted as saying by the Guardian.

“It’s lasted four and a half years. The dude ultimately taking it against me is worth $100bn. I haven’t got [that]. I’ve got very little,” the environmental activist added, talking about the business conglomerate’s chairman Gautam Adani.

In a lengthy judgement, Justice Susan Brown struck out the allegations by the Adani Group that ‘demands and threats’ by Pennings had caused two companies to withdraw from their contracts to provide services to the Carmichael mine in Queensland, Australia.

The first company was Greyhound and the judge called the allegations “embarrassing” because the group could not demonstrate a “causal nexus” between the alleged demands and threats’ by Pennings and the bus company withdrawing from the contract.

The judge also called the pleadings in case of a company named Downer as ‘inconsistent’ with the evidence provided to the court and that the claim has ‘considerable weakness’, according to the report by the Guardian.

The judge allowed the case to still move forward as she did not find that it amounted to the abuse of the process. So the Gautam Adani-led Group can file a new statement of claim in February next year.

Statement by the Adani Group

The mining arm of the Adani Group, Adani mining, released a statement after the judgement. The company said that it has brought the proceedings against Ben Pennings in 2020 to ‘enforce its rights’ to carry out business activities free from ‘intimidation and harassment’

“Mr Pennings had applied to the court to have the case struck out. He also asked the court to lift the injunction against him which prevents him from threatening our contractors and employees. Justice Brown rejected both applications and the injunction remains in place,” the company added.

“Pennings has been either wholly unsuccessful or largely unsuccessful at every stage of the civil legal proceedings since they began. The matter is expected to go to trial in 2025,” it clarified.