Facebook concedes WA court has jurisdiction in Andrew Forrest case over advertising scams
Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s court case against Facebook parent company Meta will proceed after overcoming an argument about legal jurisdiction.
Lawyers for the tech giant made their first appearance in West Australia’s magistrates court on Tuesday and conceded the court had jurisdiction, clearing the way for criminal proceedings over alleged clickbait advertising to go ahead.
Forrest, the founder of iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group, alleges the social media company was criminally reckless in allowing bogus advertisements using his image to appear on its site.
The three charges allege Facebook did not take sufficient steps to take down the scam advertisements, which feature the businessman and other prominent Australians.
In a separate civil case launched in March, the ACCC alleges the scams cost one user more than $650,000.
Facebook did not appear in court during an initial hearing in March, arguing it did not believe the court had jurisdiction. The court entered a plea of not guilty on Meta’s behalf.
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Simon Clarke, representing Forrest, said outside the court it was a milestone day as it was the first time Meta had conceded jurisdiction in Australia.
“Usually, they subject you to a bit of a battle for two or three years,” he said.
The brief hearing mostly centred on an application about the parallel federal court proceedings brought by the consumer watchdog.
Magistrate Brionie Ayling set a committal hearing for Forrest’s case on 4 November.
In bringing the charges in February, Forrest said he’d made repeated requests to Facebook to take down the advertisements, alleging the ads first appeared in March 2019 and have appeared as recently as this year.
In separate civil proceedings Forrest launched in California in September, Facebook argued it was protected from liability because Forrest had a Facebook account, and had therefore agreed to the site’s terms and conditions.
If the WA case reaches trial, it will pass over to the commonwealth director of public prosecutions.
While Meta could face fines, Clarke said a conviction would also serve as a
warning to all social media platforms.
“It would cause [Meta] to reflect on the way they’re running their platform,” he said.