In what may be a world first, lawyers from Canberra law firm Meyer Vandenberg persuaded a judge in the Australian Capital Territory's Supreme Court to allow them to serve the documents over the internet after repeatedly failing to serve the papers in person. Lawyer Mark McCormack came up with the Facebook plan after it became clear that the couple did not want to be found. Carmel Rita Corbo and Gordon Poyser had failed to keep up repayments on a $150,000 (£44,000) loan they had borrowed from MKM Capital, a mortgage provider. The pair had ignored emails from the law firm and did not attend a court appearance on Oct 3. Mr McCormack said the pair had "vanished". So he looked to Facebook, better known for its tendency to break up marriages and ruin careers, for inspiration. "It's somewhat novel, however we do see it as a valid method of bringing the matter to the attention of the defendant," McCormack said."It's one of those occasions where you feel most at home with what you know and I myself have a Facebook account." "We don't know of any other lawyer who has used Facebook in this way," he told News Ltd. "We got the idea ourselves in the course of looking at alternative methods of bringing the matter to the defendants' attention." Mr McCormack insisted there was no other way to find the pair.
"They weren't available at their residence. They no longer worked at the place given in some documents as the last place of their employment," he said. "The Facebook profiles showed the defendants' dates of birth, email addresses and friend lists – and the co-defendants were friends with one another. "This information was enough to satisfy the court that Facebook was a sufficient method of communicating with the defendants." The court decided Facebook was a legally viable way to communicate. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )
Post a Comment