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Friday May 22, 1998
Nice to see you still going. It must be nearly a year now since CU told me that they were taking legal action to close your site down...... BTW I am using you as a Web Site From Hell re corporate marketing and understanding the Net.
Ian Dickson, IFA . Moneyweb
Ian Dickson
nfp, UK
Brefni's Response
Thanks for the hello. The CUCF web site is well into its second year. I don't mind the Web Site From Hell label if it helps to improve corporate governance and ethics, as long as I don't have to wear horns and carry a pitch fork (I prefer a Panama and walking stick).
Interest in the site is growing steadily with a minimum 25% increase in user sessions per month to just over 800 last month. More encouraging is the fact that the average session is between 5 and 6 minutes. Given the Gad Fly nature of the internet I must be doing something right.
We both knew that CU's threat to close down the site was so much hot air. If there were legal grounds for closing down the site they would have tried to do it rather than talking about it. The CUCF site as a news source, among other things concerning our claim against CU, puts the site and the information published here on undefined legal ground, so far without any pyrotechnics.
The CUCF web site has been named in a peripheral matter to our CU claim, Brown Forbes Chochla Burnes & Aikins vs Shuttleworth (Ontario Court file CP-04059/97).
Court rulings and motions from CU or any one else about the site and what can or can not be published have yet to come. Perhaps we will have to wait until Shuttleworth vs Commercial Union comes to trial before we get a judicial critique of what is published on the CUCF site ( Diary of a Mad Insured - see below).
Our claim against CU is in the process of being amended to include a claim that "Commercial Union has completely underminded the purpose of property insurance". The damages in our claim have increased to $1,700.000.00 and the punitive, aggravated and exemplary damages to $5,100,000.00 (this being Canada and not the U.S).
A criminal trial on Canada's west cost is currently getting alot of media attention, in part because the accussed, Guilian Guess, has her own web site presenting her side of things, commenting on her trial and publishing some of the e-mail she has recieved.
www3.BC.SYMPATICO.CA/GGUESS
The judge in the case is reported to be not amused and to have made an order that Ms. Guess stop writing her Diary Of a Mad Juror. I haven't seen the wording of the order, (presumably it dosen't say you are hearby ordered to stop writing your Diary Of a Mad Juror but then anything is possible).
Hopefully there is something usefull here for you in your endeavours and again thanks for the hello.
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