Phytotech founder Ross Smith in Israel with medical marijuana.Ā Photo: Supplied
Stock market forum HotCopper has hit back at the founder of Australia’s first listed medical marijuana company, who resigned after a series of threatening and explicit rants was allegedly posted on social media.
The departure of Ross Smith, executive director of medical marijuana company Phytotech, was announced to the Australian Securities Exchange on Monday afternoon.
Mr Smith said the social media messages were the work of hackers and accused HotCopper forum users of a campaign against him.
“I am going to sue HotCopper because of the clear and blatant disregard for their own posting rules and major breaches of ASIC regulations in regards to the incredible personal attacks on me. They might as well just have a posting thread of ‘I hate Ross Smith’,” he said.
Mr Smith claimed an individual at HotCopper “has a vendetta against me and was behind an orchestrated campaign of defamatory remarks against myself and of misleading information against Phytotech”.
Mr Smith said he was taking legal advice and would be “coming after everyone associated with HotCopper and the posts”.
The experience meant it was unlikely he would take a directorship with another public company, Mr Smith said.
“These trolls from HotCopper seem to operate with impunity, with ASIC simply sitting back allowing it to happen.”
He stated that he was confident that Phytotech would “go on to become a huge success. I will continue to stay living in Israel while looking for the next big thing in biotechnology and technology.”
HotCopper managing director Greg D’Arcy, however, said that the person behind the initial HotCopper post was not a part-owner of HotCopper.
Mr D’Arcy said that at no stage had Smith reported to HotCopper management that the Facebook post being quoted on HotCopper was written by hackers.
Mr Smith said on his Facebook page on Tuesday that Phytotech’s performance now entitled him to millions of performance rights, which can be converted into shares. In order to achieve the rights, Phytotech’s five-day volume weighted average price had to exceed 60Ā¢.
“In case anyone is interested, yes I achieved the PYL performance hurdles in 5 days. VWAP = Volume Weighted Average Price. It blasted through 60 cents so job done. I have appointed a strong management team. So the other 5m PS are in the bag. Management is not my strong point. Having a great time is more like it.”
The HotCopper user had discussed performance shares held by Phytotech’s management team.
A message on Mr Smith’s Facebook page stated that he and his “special forces bodyguards” had tracked forum user “Harry” down to an address in Perth.
“We have already tracked Harry down to an address in Perth and guess what? He … has a problem with me… Guess what c***? We will be paying you a visit and my friends are very very good at what they do.”
The alleged message is no longer visible.
But two others present on his page included: “Missing my FN TAC 7.62mm Sniper Rifle at present. 800m practice rounds in target. It makes for a clean head shot to create red mist”, which is posted alongside a picture of a rifle, and “Someone once said once that violence doesn’t solve problems. I think not, just ask the founding fathers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
However, Mr Smith told Fairfax that: “It appears that my Gmail account got hacked and that is how they got into my Facebook account.
“I still cannot recover my Gmail account because they changed my password.
“You can see that I discovered this at 8.30am local time [on Sunday].Ā Pretty impressive cyber attack actually. These are the guys I am dealing with.”
Mr Smith declined to detail the circumstances of his resignation.
Mr Smith said he was pursuingĀ persuingĀ opportunities with Israeli companies. “Israel is an amazing hotbed of technical innovation and I am in advanced discussions with several incredible biotechnology and technology companies,” he said.
Phytotech shares listed at 20Ā¢Ā in January, raising $5.9 million. The shares reached a peak of 92Ā¢ but closed on Tuesday at 35.5Ā¢.