Australia’s biggest medicinal cannabis company launches legal action over news story

Australia’s biggest medicinal cannabis company has launched legal action against The Age, demanding it take down a story revealing allegations the company was unlawfully advertising its products.

On Monday afternoon, the Federal Court heard an application from Montu to force The Age to take down the story and reveal the confidential sources behind the report.

Australian medicinal cannabis company Montu sells the Circle brand of cannabis.Credit: Reddit

Montu says the story was, in part, based on a restricted document, which was accidentally released to The Age by the Federal Court.

The Age editor Patrick Elligett said the media company would defend the case.

“This request appears to be little more than a big company with means attempting to shut down accurate reporting that is unfavourable to its interests,” Elligett said. “The Age will always stand up for its readers against attempts to stifle press freedom.”

The Age has asked the court to dismiss the application, and for Montu to pay costs. Montu has asked for The Age to pay costs.

Earlier this month, The Age published an investigation into Australia’s booming medicinal cannabis industry and concerns about the level of regulation around it.

One of those stories focused on Montu, the largest player in the industry.

In April, the Therapeutic Goods Administration commenced Federal Court action against Montu and its cannabis telehealth clinic, Alternaleaf, accusing them of unlawfully advertising cannabis using terms including “medical cannabis” and “plant medicine”.

Montu denies many of the allegations raised by the TGA. In a court filing earlier this month, the company said it had not contravened the Therapeutic Goods Act.

Some of The Age’s reporting was based on a court document filed on behalf of the TGA.

The document was released by the court to Age investigative journalist Clay Lucas, along with several other court documents.

In a letter to The Age’s legal team, Montu’s solicitors earlier claimed the court document was restricted and should not have been accessible without a judge’s approval.

In response, Larina Alick, executive counsel for The Age, said Lucas had applied to the court to inspect the document, paid an inspection fee and been provided with the document by the court.

There was no legal prohibition on publishing such documents, Alick said.

In court on Monday, Justice John Snaden said the document had been provided in error.

Zoe Hillman, appearing for Montu, said The Age had “a desire to take advantage of what is a registry slip”.

It was important for the court and affected parties to have the ability to remedy cases of “human error … to protect the public’s confidence in the way in which a proceeding is dispatched”, she said.

Raphael Strauch is the majority owner of Australia’s biggest medicinal cannabis company, Montu.Credit: Instagram

But Alick said The Age had already deleted its copy of the document at the request of the court and had asked three sources it had shared the document with to also delete it.

Hillman later withdrew the application to force The Age to reveal who it had shared the document with.

Alick said the information was now public – the story was published on October 20 – and there was little point in now ordering it to be deleted.

“It was an innocent mistake. But the fact is, that information has already been published. For the court to make orders to try and pretend this did not happen would expose the court to ridicule,” she said.

“They would, in effect, be a King Canute order, trying to order the tide not come in.”

She further noted that one key section of the document was a photograph of a public post on internet forum Reddit, which itself was almost two years old. Even if The Age’s article was removed, the post would remain online, she said.

“For this court to make a non-publication order over that information, in my submission, must be futile and ineffective.”

Montu was founded in 2019 by Christopher Strauch and the company is majority-owned by his brother, Raphael, via the German pair’s Hong Kong-based holding company.

Raphael Strauch is heavily involved in cryptocurrency and posts regular updates on social media showing him on private jets, on the ski field, with vintage sports cars and with a Porsche 911 in the Dakar rally.

Justice Snaden reserved his decision for Tuesday morning.

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