Friday, May 1, 1998
Just a typist, Bre-X's Jeannette Walsh says
By SANDRA RUBIN
The Financial Post
Jeannette Walsh says she should be excluded from a Texas-based class
action lawsuit because she had nothing to do with the day-to-day running of
disgraced Bre-X Minerals Ltd. and, despite holding the title of corporate
secretary, was nothing more than a typist.
Walsh - who is alleged to have sold at least $19.4 million worth of Bre-X stock in 1996 - told the
court in any event, she has already been named in another lawsuit filed in Canada.
She said in an affidavit filed in Texarkana, Tex., yesterday she was made corporate secretary in
1989 because the tiny Calgary exploration firm couldn't afford to hire full-time staff. She held the
position until formally resigning in October 1996.
"My responsibilities were purely administrative in nature," Walsh said in the statement, sworn out on
Wednesday.
"I did the typing, answered the phones, opened the mail and attended to the administrative functions
of a corporate secretary and details relating to the company's regulatory obligations."
She said she never attended a company board meeting, was not involved with the decision to list
Bre-X on Nasdaq and was not routinely consulted about the contents of SEC filings, news releases
or other public statements.
Walsh, who has been married to Bre-X chief executive David Walsh for more than 30 years, also
said in her motion to dismiss that the way she understood it, Bre-X's operations in Indonesia were
under the "authority and control of Bre-X's Indonesian management."
Exploration chief John Felderhof was running the show on the island of Borneo, where the Busang
core sample was drilled, then mixed with outside gold before being sent to laboratories for analysis.
Jeannette Walsh's lawyers also argued in the filing U.S. Federal Court has no jurisdiction over their
client, who has never lived or done business in the U.S. and has been a resident of the Bahamas
since 1995. They point out she has been named in a Bre-X action in Ontario.
She joins a long list of defendants trying to have themselves removed from the huge class action suit
on jurisdictional grounds.
Felderhof, fellow directors Stephen McAnulty, Rolando Francisco, Paul Kavanagh and Hugh
Lyons, and Nesbitt Burns Inc. and Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Inc. are all awaiting a ruling from
U.S. Court Judge David Folsom on motions to dismiss.
A decision, which will also include a critical ruling on whether Canadian investors can participate in
the U.S.-based suit, is expected within the next couple of weeks.
Lawyers behind the Texas suit say it will be some time before David Walsh, finally served with
notice of the lawsuit at his Bahamas residence earlier this week, is expected to file his response.
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