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May 2 2007
Amazing's officers, despite loudly proclaiming their righteousness and integrity and boasting their superior access to the justice system by reason of financial resources, have now resorted the grubby tactics of engaging in personal defamation of Interad's personnel.
Why? They have superior financial resources to pay the best lawyers and they've claimed the "home ground" advantage, openly telling Interad how expensive Californian lawyers are and how they would all have to travel. And even with that massive advantage on their side, they apparenly cannot rely on the Court system to support their claim, but have to resort to guttersnipe tactics and personal attack.
We acknowledge their request that we provide a link to the web site they created, but we have had to reject that request on the basis that it would make Interad a party to serious personal defamation of individuals about whom Amazing has published scurilous untruths.
Why on earth, if they believe they have a valid argument to justify their "cancellation" of the contract with Interad, will they not submit to fair independent arbitration? Interad has asked for nothing except arbitration in a forum to which it has fair access.
Registering a web site under Interad's name (which in itself seems somewhat unethical), they have posted past writings of Lorraine Cobcroft which are completely irrelevant to the matter. It is unclear what they seek achieve by doing so.
The postings are accompanied by rather misleading tag lines and untruthful personally defamatory claims that stoop so low, in parts, as to claim a family member has a history of "substance abuse" and to try to imply questions as to Lorraine's sanity. (Is this a form of attempted blackmail? Do they think causing personal hurt will force Interad's officers to withdraw from attempts to protect the legal rights of Interad's shareholders?)
Lorraine found Hall's claim that Interad had been unable to mount a credible defence against Amazing amusing, and is disappointed that law prevents exposing the briefs submitted to the courts by both sides, which would clearly demonstrate to the contrary.
There is an absurd accusation of "extortion" against Telstra - with whom Interad had a major dispute which was ultimately settled on confidential terms, to the satisfaction of both parties, after Telstra admitted a service failure. An independent consultant who has been involved in many disputes between Telstra and its customers would validate any claim that Interad acted professionally, ethically, and appropriately at all times in that matter, and that the outcome was a legal and appropriate settlement on the proper commercial terms.
A majority of Australians would likely agree with some of the sentiments Lorraine expressed before the dispute was resolved. Indeed, at least four television exposes expressed the exact same sentiments on behalf of millions of Australians.
There is also a letter Amazing's Chairman apparently wrote to the ACCC in response to inquiries into their conduct. Interad has responded to that letter pointing out some quite seriously incorrect statements and providing evidence of truth. We have asked ACCC to re-open investigations and look at the evidence, rather than accepting Hall's claims.
Amazing accuse Interad of selling "phantom software", but go on to show their gross ignorance by claiming a solution written entirely in Java on a Linux/Apache platform is "a mish mash of Microsoft" already patented!
This is the "phantom software" that is badged and used by the Australian Technology Showcase, Australian Army Band Corp, and many other reputable and satisfied customers.
It is also the software that Amazing "never received, never had, never used, never sold," but proved conclusively was "not marketable" via a demonstration to its resellers of software that was actually Amazing's technology but it claimed was Interad's.
And of course it's the software it told investors it owned and was "actively integrating" to its own product suite for global marketing in May, June and July 06 (apparently without ever receiving it).
They also accuse Interad's officers of "extortion". Odd! Interad has suffered massive losses as a result of Amazing's cancellation of a contract. Amazing, on the other hand, enjoyed the benefit of Interad's technical director's skills and services for 5 months (and he says he is still owed over $3000 in respect of work done that was not even related to the Interad deal), gained access to Interad's IP and trade secrets (and has not returned it) and paid nothing. Now it is demanding $100 million compensation for its "losses"?
Interad's only demand, on the other hand, has been - and remains - for independent assessment of the facts and evidence by an expert arbitrator in a forum to which both parties have fair and equal access, and agreement to abide by the arbitrator's decision.
Dictionary definition of "extortion" suggests it involves an attempt to gain benefit by the use of threats. Given that Amazing took a court action it believed Interad could not defend, threatening its Directors with loss of "houses and other assets", and demanding $100m compensation, who is more likely to be engaging in "extortion"?
Amazing has challenged Interad to agree to an inspection of Amazing's servers and its customers servers by an independent expert to verify that Amazing is not using Interad's source code. We appreciate the offer, however it comes with strings attached. They insist that Interad must agree to withdraw all claims if no Interad code is found.
We think that unreasonable, as the offer fails to address the core issues of
- breach of contract and misrepresentation,
- the horrific costs imposed on Interad by wrongful court action in the US,
- the damaged caused by the gross trade, product and personal defamation Amazing has engaged in, and
- the compromising of Interad's proprietary rights in knowledge and trade secrets that Amazing claimed ownership of and gained access to by entering into the contract.
Further, the Interad's officers are concerned that there is no way to establish with confidence that Amazing hasn't retained backups or copies at premises that are excluded from the inspection because they are not known to Interad, or in customer sites that Interad is not aware of and are excluded from the inspection.
Simon Arkell's latest email to Lorraine Cobcroft claims:
all we did was cancel an agreement whereby Amazing would license your software if it proved to be marketable.
An "amazing" (pardon the pun) claim! The problem is that the Agreement was an agreement for Amazing to purchase the software, and it was based on elaborate claims by Amazing of their capabilities and intentions in respect of it, and their ability to generate royalties for Interad.
The contract was NOT subject to Amazing proving it marketable, and Interad would never have agreed to such a clause without having a substantial measure of control over the proposed integration project and market endeavours.
The fact is that Amazing Australia failed to perform the integration. If they seek to claim that was somehow Garrick Cobcroft's fault, Interad is very confident Garrick will be happy to entertain them and prove them wrong. The proof of their failure is copious and clear. Regardless, however, the fact is that he was employed by Amazing Australia, and Interad is neither aware of, nor responsible for, anything that happened at Amazing Australia between it and its employees. Any claim relating to Interad's software must necessarily be evidenced to relate to what was delivered in April 2006 and be established via direct discussion with Interad's Board, giving Interad a fair opportunity to respond. That never happened.
In any case, Simon, that's a long way from being all Amazing did. It responded to Interad's very legitimate requests for discussion with insults, abuse, and heavy threats - and then took wrongful court action in the US, openly stating it did so because it believed Interad would be unable to defend its rights there.
And Amazing engaged in personal libel and serious product defamation rather than submitting to fair determination of the dispute.
We could go on for pages responding to the nonsensical and totally contradictory claims Amazing has made, but there is simply no point.
The facts of the matter are abundantly clear from the documentary evidence - 283+ pages of it!
We would like to suggest to Amazing's officers that they study the legal definitions of the words "extortion" and "defamation". Interad engaged in neither.
To be defamatory, statements must be untrue. We do not believe anything has been said about Amazing or its officers that is untrue, and we have invited notification of any incorrect claim. Nothing in any response from Amazing has indicated any inaccuracy or untruth. To the contrary, every response supports Interad's view that Amazing acted deceptively and wrongfully, and that now, in the face of copious proof, their only recourse is to guttersnipe tactics of unjustified personal attack.
The problem for Amazing is that Interad has produced copious conclusive evidence that its claims against Interad are false and that it had no right or entitlement to overturn the Agreement and refuse payment. Click here to read Arkell's latest attempt at justification and Interad's response.
We do not believe that statements regarding their share dealings were untrue. We have written evidence confirming the issue of shares to Interad. Either they were cancelled without evidencing any justification, or, as Amazing now claim, they were never issued in the first place and the written confirmations of perfection both to us and the public (including investors from whom they sought funding based on claims of ownership) were lies.
Regardless, their share dealings are highly questionable. A shareholder who purchased shares for cash has a letter from Amazing cancelling those shares without compensation.
If Amazing are confident they are right, why won't they submit to fair arbitration? Their conduct to date doesn't suggest confidence in their ability to prevail in a fair assessment of facts.
Watch for further updates as court hearings progress. | 
