I am deeply offended by comments made by Chris Burke in his recent Microlatch website news pages. Burke’s statements are not only defamatory and offensive, they are false, misleading and deceptive. The facts are:
1. In the 13 years since I invested in Microlatch with my good friend the late Michael Crouch AC, Burke has repeatedly breached our Shareholders Agreement, breached his statutory obligations as a company director and attempted to strip the company of assets underpinning the value of our investment.
2. The Supreme Court of NSW directed Mr Burke to transfer and assign ownership of various patents as a result of two judgements of that Court and consent orders signed by Burke himself and the liquidator of Securicom (NSW )Pty Ltd and Microlatch Pty Ltd confirming that no ownership, either a legal or beneficial interest, resides with Burke or any interests owned or controlled by him.
3. A commercial agreement exists between my interests and Charter Pacific to protect my rights in the various patents and their exploitation.
In evidence I gave to the Supreme Court in 2018 I stated that I cannot trust Burke. The reason Michael Crouch and I wanted the Charter Pacific deal to succeed was because it would give us value for the patents and liquidity in our Charter Pacific holdings. Up to that point we had given up any hope getting a return out of Burke who appeared not to know or care about the best pathways for commercialisation of the patents, and regarded our shareholders agreement as an inconvenience.
I repeat that I find Burke’s references to me deeply offensive. The judgement of the Murray and Crouch interests was that an alignment of our interests with Charter Pacific provided an opportunity to recover our investments.