BlackBay Lawyers was warned of anti-Semitic views of former partner

Former BlackBay Lawyers partner Justin Carroll, left, and former BlackBay employee Yianni Van Gelder.

Sydney legal firm BlackBay Lawyers moved quickly on Friday to distance itself from the slimy, anti-Semitic banter uncovered between its former partner, Justin Carroll, and another former BlackBay employee, ­Yianni Van Gelder. Pity, however, that complaints about Carroll’s repulsive remarks had been filed with BlackBay management more than a year earlier. No action was taken.

In a statement, BlackBay said it was “shocked” by the “abhorrent views and comments” that have emerged out of a lawsuit filed against both of these men. BlackBay is suing the pair, terminated in February, over allegations of “serious misconduct” and their plans to establish a rival firm. It’s through this legal process that Carroll and Van Gelder’s messages, with their pitiful double-helix of Jew hatred and conspiracy, have come to light.

In among their scheming to allegedly transplant clients and pilfer confidential information is a grab-bag of casual jibes and deadly serious commentary about the “Holohoax”, “Jew confected anti-Semitism”, claims that “Jews monitor everyone on social media”, and their jointly held apprehension about using OpenAI because the CEO, Sam Altman, “is a Jew”.

A BlackBay spokesperson was unequivocal: “There is no place for such views and certainly not in our workplace.”

We don’t doubt the sincerity, but it’s also true that complaints about Carroll’s use of anti-­Semitic tropes were made as far back as February last year to managing partner Victoria-Jane Otavski, who didn’t exactly rush to do anything about it. The firm said she was on maternity leave at the time.

BlackBay Lawyers managing partner Victoria-Jane Otavski.

One email to Otavski, sent on February 11, 2024, drew her attention to a “highly offensive, anti-Semitic” comment made by Carroll on LinkedIn that sought to “trivialise the trauma experienced by the Jewish people and to weaponise it against us”.

Otavski didn’t reply to that email, nor to a separate complaint made one day later – about the same LinkedIn post – raising a concern around Carroll’s use of “conspiracy theories and plain old anti-Semitic tropes”.

The complainant wrote: “I am genuinely surprised that Justin, who is not known to me nor the other party on LinkedIn, would make such public statements via a professional networking tool. I intend to lodge a formal complaint [against Carroll] with the NSW Legal Services Commissioner.”

A “read receipt” from Otavski was delivered about an hour later, indicating that she had seen his email, although, again, the firm said this occurred while she was on maternity leave.

“BlackBay Lawyers are looking into the emails said to have been sent last year,” a spokesperson said. “What we can presently say, and mindful that legal proceedings are on foot, is that the vile anti-Semitic messages between Mr Carroll and Mr van Gelder are shocking and they have no place in the firm or Australian society. It should be called out – as it now has been.”

ERA mine fallout

As Rio Tinto finally moves to mop up the ownership for former uranium miner ERA, is there one last roll of the dice for minority shareholders that still want to see the rich Jabiluka deposit developed?

Rio crossed over the 90 per cent shareholding threshold after dissident shareholders Willy Packer and Richard Magides turned down the chance to throw good money after bad and take up their full share of last year’s massively dilutionary rights issue from ERA. Probably a wise decision, given both have burned millions on a stock now worth almost nothing. Rio is now proposing to buy them out at 0.2c a share.

But, due to a quirk in the Corporations Act, there’s still a chance to spend yet more money on lawyers in an effort to squeeze a little extra cash out of the global mining giant.

Because Rio crossed the 90 per cent shareholding level through a rights issue, not as part of a takeover, it doesn’t get to simply acquire the stock on a compulsory basis. Instead, the company has had to splash out on an independent expert report valuing ERA shares, to put a price on the uranium miner’s remaining assets and set a “fair value” for its remaining stock.

For the record, given the enormous rehabilitation liability involved in cleaning up the old Ranger uranium mine, the Lonergan Edwards independent report put the value of ERA stock, at best, at negative 0.02c a share.

You’d think most holders would take the pittance on offer and walk away.

Processing plants at the ERA Ranger uranium mine. Picture: ERA

But it will only take an objection from a non-Rio shareholder holding 10 per cent of the outstanding shares – and both Packer and Magides will be above that threshold – to force Rio to apply for court orders authorising a compulsory mop-up of minorities. That would offer another chance for either man to head to court to argue that Jabiluka is worth more than Rio says it is, and should be flogged off if Rio doesn’t want to build a mine on the deposit.

Will they do it? Packer told Margin Call he’d moved on from the pitched battle over the uranium stock, but Magides didn’t respond to an email asking about his future plans.

But some foolhardy soul bought $6.6m worth of ERA stock in the rights issue, and there’s been plenty of on-market buying as well. More than 82 million shares changed hands on Friday, mostly at 0.2c a share – and Margin Call is told Magides has been a recent buyer of the stock.

And the Singapore-based business certainly hasn’t lost his penchant for spending big on fool’s errands.

Magides was last seen in March splashing out about $US10m on building up a 13 per cent stake in US-listed genetic testing company 23andMe. Right before the company went bust, sparking a furious political debate about the future of the personal data it holds.

The reason? To protect minority shareholders from a fire sale of the company’s assets, Magides said in a US regulatory filing.

Forget St Jude, Magides is Margin Call’s preferred bet to become the next patron saint of lost causes. And evidence suggests he’ll remain a thorn in Rio’s side for some time to come.

War mongering

Climate 200 MPs once assured us that, if elected, they would stay in their lanes, avoid the mission creep into big, unwieldy topics, like tax and warfare, and that they’d advocate for constituents by holding accountable whichever party forms government. Fine.

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan seemed happy enough with that for a time, her former campaign director Ann Capling once telling a constituent that Ryan would “not be making tax policies, or declaring war”.

Yet here we are, three years later, with Ryan effectively banging away at the entry to the Situation Room with demands for a review of the AUKUS submarine partnership. A review, Ryan said in a press statement on Thursday, that was necessary “in light of ­increasing community concerns regarding their cost and delivery”, as though this subs deal with Britain and America is really worrying the yuppies of Kooyong.

Granted, not exactly a declaration of war, but is light tinkering with Australia’s most valuable military alliance not a step forward on the same continuum?

And Ryan isn’t the only teal dabbling in this space.

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel followed suit and issued a press statement the same day calling for a “formal review” of the AUKUS partnership, as did batty Climate 200 candidate Nicolette Boele, who we can hardly begrudge for wanting to look busy at the ­moment. It’s been a tough week or two.

Then again, you can issue a thousand press statements, pay for an electoral office, spend two years cosplaying as an MP … and they won’t call you a politician.

But sexually harass one hairdresser?