Explorers take on bulletin critics

09/08/2010 Robert Tyerman

Nighthawk Energy and Nostra Terra have taken legal action to identify the authors of allegedly damaging statements about them on internet bulletin boards.

The two AIM companies, both developing oil and gas projects in different parts of the USA, say they have obtained High Court orders instructing the bulletin board operators, Interactive Investor Trading and ADVFN, to provide information about the people who they maintain have repeatedly posted what Nighthawk calls 'defamatory and untrue' and Nostra Terra dubs 'untrue and malicious' statements about their activities and personnel.

According to Nighthawk, headed by entrepreneurial David Bramhill, and Nostra Terra, a former shell called LHP Investments out of the Leo Knifton stable and now steered by chief executive officer Matt Lofgran, both Interactive Investor Trading and ADVFN are co-operating fully with their quest for information.

Whatever the allegations involved, the action taken by the two energy juniors raises the issue of legal protection for the confidentiality of contributors to bulletin boards who, as anyone reading them soon learns, can have all sorts of axes to grind.

Floated at 25p three years ago, after a good early run, shares in Nighthawk, set to exhibit at next month's Growth Company Investor show at the Barbican in the City, have fallen from 46p to 25.5p over the past year, valuing the company at £84 million. At 0.4p, shares in Nostra Terra are down from a 12-month high of 2.08p and put a value on the company of £6.5 million.