Settlement with Chat Board User
Northern also announced that it has entered into a Settlement Agreement with Mario Rigolli, Jr., who has consented to a judgment in favour of Northern as a result of his publication of a series of defamatory postings against Northern and its management team under five different user names on an Internet chat board known as Bullboards owned and operated by Stockhouse Media Corporation. These actions possibly impacted Northern’s stock price in an adverse manner.
In connection with the judgment, Mr. Rigolli has paid a cash amount to Northern and has provided Northern and its management with the following signed apology:
“I, Mario Rigolli, Jr. of the City of Montreal, apologize fully, sincerely and completely to Northern Financial Corporation (‘NFC’) and Vic Alboini, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NFC, for my writing, posting and publishing on the Stockhouse Bulletin Board a series of derogatory, malicious, defamatory and completely false statements about NFC and Mr. Alboini. I published these defamatory postings under the user names ‘Ramazotti’, ‘TinaTurner’, ‘ParizeauMyBros.’, ‘DeadDog10’ and ‘NFC Crap’. I categorically and without reservation withdraw each and every one of my postings. I greatly regret that I made the postings and I sincerely apologize both to Mr. Alboini and to NFC for the postings.
I am not and have never been a shareholder of NFC. I have never made any short sales of NFC shares. I never profited in any manner as a result of my defamatory postings.”
Northern does not consider the cash amount paid under the settlement agreement to be material. However, Northern considered it appropriate to disclose this settlement primarily for public service reasons. First, this settlement will be published by Northern on the Stockhouse Bulletin Board in order to deter similar egregious conduct by anonymous users of chat boards, and accordingly under applicable securities law legislation it was considered appropriate to disclose this information, despite its non-materiality, by press release to all investors.
Second, Northern believes that other public companies, which face similar potential defamatory postings on chat board sites, may be interested in the settlement obtained by Northern.
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