The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana has ruled that a lawsuit launched by New Orleans-based coin dealer Blanchard & Co. against Barrick Gold (ABX-T) and investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM-N) can proceed to the discovery phase.
During discovery each party is required to make available its relevant documents to the other side.
A motion by the defendants petitioning the Court to reconsider an earlier ruling allowing the case to go ahead had hung up the lawsuit.
In its press release Blanchard quoted the courts ruling as saying, “While the defendants are understandably dissatisfied with a ruling not in their favour, this is neither the time nor method to raise these issues again.”
In December, New Orleans-based Blanchard filed an anti-trust suit alleging that Barrick and J.P Morgan made some US$2 billion in short-selling profits since 1987 by “suppressing the price of gold at the expense of individual investors.”
In a prepared statement, Blanchard’s chief executive Donald Doyle Jr. said, “Barrick and Morgan appear to have lost the chance to delay the discovery phase of the case any further.”
Blanchard has already served Barrick and J.P. Morgan with its requests for production, and expects to move into the discovery process immediately.
In other news, Barrick has declared a dividend of US11 per share to payable on Dec. 15 to shareholders of record on Dec. 1.
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