The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers have reported that $1.87 million of company funds were lent to Ben Roberts-Smith to pay for private legal expenses, but minority shareholders were not told.
The two mastheads, which are owned by Nine, who Roberts-Smith has taken a defamation lawsuit against, reported that they had seen a secret agreement signed by Ryan Stokes. He is the son of Kerry Stokes, chairman of the Seven Network.
According to the Age and the Herald, the document confirmed that Seven West Media company, which the Stokes family are majority shareholders of, lent shareholder money to Roberts-Smith. Roberts-Smith is Seven West Media’s Queensland Manager.
The loan was allegedly paid by ACE, a private company owned by the Stokes family.
A Seven spokesperson told the Herald that the loan was “repaid to Seven and this is no longer a Seven issue. This is a private matter regarding an employee that Seven will not engage in.”
Roberts-Smith has accused Nine of trying to intimidate him out of his lawsuit after Sunday night’s episode of 60 Minutes (pictured).
The episode alleged that he had buried a USB of evidence about SAS soldiers rather than handing it to war crimes investigators, including images published by Nine in both ACA and the Herald of a soldier dressed in a Ku Klux Klan costume at a base party in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith’s lawyers responded to the program in a statement saying, “these allegations are not supported by any evidence filed by Mr McKenzie and Nine in what has been an extensive pre-trial process.”
“These allegations were not put to Mr Roberts-Smith prior to being broadcast on 60 Minutes and published in the Nine newspapers. Mr Roberts-Smith denies that he has engaged in any unlawful conduct and he will not be intimidated by Mr McKenzie or Nine into not continuing with the Federal Court proceedings against them.”
The Seven network said in a statement that, “Seven Network notes the denial by its Seven Queensland Managing Director Ben Roberts-Smith VC of the allegations aired by Nine on 60 Minutes last night and as further published in the Nine newspapers,” the network said in a statement.”
The defamation case is particularly notable as Roberts-Smith is the most decorated Australian soldier and one of the defendants of the case, Nick McKenzie is the most awarded journalist in the Melbourne Press Club’s history.
