E-Malt.com News article: 309

Belgian Brewer, Interbrew, agreed with Reuters, The Financial Times and The Times to postpone the deadline of delivery the documents set for Monday, July the 22nd.

On July 10th 2002, the House of Lords rejected the appeal of five UK news organizations (The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and Reuters). Thereby, the decision of The Court of Appeal was upheld i.e. the five news organizations ought to hand over to Interbrew the original copies of the falsified documents on so-called imminent bid on South African Breweries, which they received from an anonymous source in November 2001. The news organizations refused to obey the judgment.

On July 17th, 2002, Interbrew made a proposal, which stipulates that the five news organizations would deliver the documents directly to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), “on the basis that the FSA would be under no obligation to provide either the documents or any information deriving from those documents to Interbrew”.

Since The Independent informed Interbrew that they do not hold an original copy of the documents, Interbrew will not take any further steps for it.

The leaked and falsified documents were received by Guardian, which declared that the documents are not in its possession but in possession of their journalist and they are not disposed to force him to hand over the documents to FSA. Thereby, Interbrew will apply to the court for a sequestration order, effectively freezing the newspaper's assets.


23 July, 2002