Mercedes-Benz, Dulux tear up design blogger’s contract; Coal-fired partnership fizzles

Lucy Feagins of The Design Files is learning what it feels like to be cancelled.

Melbourne entrepreneur Lucy Feagins, founder of The Design Files, rushed to the defence of Sydney architect Luigi Rosselli on Tuesday night after he posted in praise of Greta Thunberg on Instagram over that “flotilla” mission to Gaza.

His followers panned him thoroughly in the hours that followed. Unable to withstand it all, he eventually locked up the comments.

Feagins loved it, of course, and anyone familiar with her obsessive commentary on Israel would expect her to show solidarity with Rosselli – which she did – an endorsement that we think was borne of her sheer sympathy for an imbecile.

In ­Feagins, we are talking about someone who actually “liked” what appears to be camera footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists as they marauded through southern Israel on October 7.

The news in all this is that ­Feagins’ corporate partners are clearly getting jack of her extreme rhetoric. Much as Nike did with Grace Tame a week ago, some of them are cutting ties with the design blogger due to these odious remarks she keeps making.

In addition to liking the aforementioned footage, she has reposted statements trivialising the murders of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, and two children killed while being held as hostage in Gaza.

It’s why German car company Mercedes-Benz quietly ended its association with The Design Files late last month when some of these posts were brought to its attention.

Lucy Feagins’ posts have a little less love and a bit more bile than two industry giants could stomach. Picture: Chris Pavlich

“We would like to clearly point out that at Mercedes-Benz, there is no room for extremism, racism and especially anti-Semitism,” the company said in a note distributed after the tie-up was scrapped.

“Our company has committed itself to the fight against anti-Semitism and racism for many years. Mercedes-Benz has also worked with the Friends of Yad Vashem in Germany for many years, which actively promotes a culture of remembrance and opposition to anti-Semitism.”

Granted, Feagins is not the brightest bulb. A bit like Tame, she was granted a lucrative brand partnership and insisted on sticking her fingers into plug sockets for a thrill.

But would it have really gone astray to ask if one ought to post incessantly about Israel and its Jewish supporters in the most poisonous terms while working in partnership with a storied German carmaker?

Forget about not mentioning the war – does Feagins even know there was a war?

On Wednesday, paint company Dulux confirmed it, too, had ended an affiliation with Feagins’ outfit, having done so on account of the same posts.

“Dulux is withdrawing its advertising from The Design Files,” a spokeswoman said.

Neither of these companies want to be associated with a brand kamikaze, regardless of the tantalising subscriber base on offer. However, Country Road is still technically in business with Feagins. We didn’t hear back from it on Wednesday when we asked for an update on the relationship.

Busy, probably, trying to find a new CEO – and mop up the ongoing mess from that harassment scandal. YB

Dirty coal fight

Should you get bonus pocket money for doing your chores? Whose turn is it to refuel the private jet? These are the disputes that happen when mining billionaires go to war.

That’s the sense you get from court cases filed in the US by Hans Mende and Fritz Kundrun, whose partnership has spectacularly fallen apart despite both making a fortune riding Queensland’s coal boom.

It is fair to say that Mende and Kundrun are among Australia’s most successful mining investors, through their jointly controlled AMCI group of companies.

Ego always trumps success, however. Even when a 40-year partnership has made both rich.

Two lawsuits in the US – filed within a day of each other – are now airing 40 years of pent-up hostility and pettiness, in court filings where legal language only barely masks the mutual dislike.

Fritz Kundrun.

Hans Mende.

As a recap, AMCI made both men a fortune just from their investments in Queensland coal – let alone from punting money into mining projects across the rest of the world.

Timely investments into companies such as Gloucester Coal and Whitehaven, ahead of the mining boom that turned Australian coking coal companies into cash cows, delivered a lot of that cash.

And, as all mining magnates inevitably do, the pair now also have their own mines. In this case it’s Queensland’s Fitzroy Australia Resources, which has Japan’s Itochu as a minority shareholder and operates the Carborough Downs, Ironbark and Broadlea coking coal mines in the state. Fitzroy made a tidy $174m profit in 2022, as coking coal prices surged.

But all good things must end, and the partnership has now descended into the kind of recriminations normally reserved for family disputes about iPad time, pocket money and who failed to top up the tank of the family car.

The dispute? Mende says he’s done all of the work for the last 25 years and, while Kundrun has been “happily pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars in distributed profits obtained through little work, if any, of his own”, Mende has been struggling along on a base salary of only $US1m a year. The AMCI board – which consists of Mende and Kundrun, to be clear – has only rarely authorised an ­annual bonus.

“Mende has been significantly underpaid relative to both other chief executives in this industry and to other executives within AMCI,” the court filings say.

Oddly enough, no mention of the “hundreds of millions in distributed profits” that Mende, as a half-owner of AMCI, has presumably also been receiving.

Kundrun, according to Mende, also spent a decade using the AMCI private jet for personal business without ever kicking in for the cost. Meanwhile, Mende was forced to fly commercial – Margin Call is betting first class, but that isn’t spelled out in the court filings.

As for his part, Kundrun complains that Mende cut him out of the business. Large swathes of Kundrun’s filings have been kept confidential, but what is left suggests his complaints fundamentally boil down to an argument that Mende failed to turn cash from asset sales into dividends, refused to meet with Kundrun, and was, generally, a bit of a prick.

“I do not know what I have done to make you take actions to hurt not only me, but to also hurt AMCI and its relationships with its employees and business partners. I remain willing, even in the face of all that you have done, to meet and collaborate with you to preserve AMCI’s reputation and the legacy that we built together,” says one email quoted in Kundrun’s court filings.

But here’s the tragedy. Sometimes when giants battle, ordinary mortals get trampled. And that was a fate only narrowly avoided by 700 workers at the Queensland coal mines controlled by the pair.

Details of the dispute have been redacted in court filings, but they also make clear the dispute led to the near closure of one of Fitzroy’s Queensland mines.

“Mende’s actions not only would have affected AMCI Group’s reputation in the coal industry and with other financial investors and partners, but would have also caused more than 700 mining employees to lose their jobs two days before Christmas,” court documents say. It’s not entirely clear what’s going on, but court documents make it clear the dispute is ongoing. NE