Barrick seeks $200m from Blanchard & Co.

Barrick Gold (ABX-T) has begun legal proceedings against New Orleans-based bullion dealer Blanchard & Co. in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Barrick is seeking $100 million in damages plus another $100 million in aggravated, exemplary and punitive damages. The gold miner is also looking for a permanent injunction restraining Blanchard & Co. and its CEO, Donald Doyle, Jr., from “repeating, disseminating, publishing or causing to be re-published the defamatory statements complained of.”

Barrick also wants any defamatory statements removed from Blanchard’s web sites or other Internet sites.

The defamatory statements to which Barrick is objecting stem from an anti-trust suit launched by Blanchard against Barrick and investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase in December 2002. In the suit, Blanchard claims the pair made some US$2 billion in short-selling profits since 1987 by “suppressing the price of gold at the expense of individual investors.”

Barrick called Blanchard’s allegations “ludicrous” and “totally without merit.”

“We value highly our reputation for carrying on business in a proper, ethical and lawful manner and will not tolerate the dissemination of false statements that are harmful to our reputation, business interests and stakeholders, by Blanchard, Doyle or others,” states Barrick’s recently installed president and CEO, Greg Wilkins.