Meat trader to sue Goodman group for libel

The owner of a meat trading company is to sue the factory at the centre of the horsemeat contamination scandal for defamation.

Martin McAdam claims the ABP Food group, owned by beef magnate Larry Goodman, deliberately made “false and malicious allegations” about him and his business to deflect media attention.

McAdam Food Products Ltd said notice of High Court proceedings has been served on ABP, which has since sold its Silvercrest facility in Co Monaghan — where horsemeat was detected in frozen burgers — to the Kepak Group.

It maintains that central to the case is a press release issued by ABP Group in February which stated that Silvercrest had purchased beef products from McAdams Food Service — about 170 tonnes out of total beef purchases in 2012 of 18,000 tonnes — in good faith, but horse DNA originating in Poland was present in some of these products.

“The allegedly false and malicious statement issued by ABP Food Group was widely distributed and reported in the Irish and international media, causing immense damage to the reputation and business of Martin McAdam and McAdam Food Products,” said a spokesman for Mr McAdam, from Newbliss in Co Monaghan.

“Mr McAdam’s legal representatives Denis McSweeney & Co have informed ABP their statement was false in that McAdam did not supply the meat to Silvercrest which tested positive for horse DNA. In fact, McAdam supplied only 60 tonnes of beef in total to Silvercrest in 2012, and not 170 tonnes as stated in the ABP press release.”

The meat trader said that as the international horsemeat contamination scandal unfolded from February onwards, he consistently stated he had no awareness or knowledge whatsoever of any possibility of there being equine content in meat products imported and supplied by him to customers.

Any such products were ordered and paid for by him at beef market prices and imported on the basis of them being understood and documented to be beef, and nothing else, he maintained.

“Mr McAdam provided all foreign supplier details and extensive documentation to the authorities including emails, invoices, commercial documents and veterinary letters stating that all products purchased by him were beef only,” a spokesman continued.

“As a meat trader he never had any physical possession of beef meat consignments ordered by him which came direct from suppliers abroad to his customers in Ireland.

“Transportation was made by a reputable Danish transport company in sealed door-to-door containers. Mr McAdam was subsequently exonerated from knowingly importing horsemeat by the Department of Agriculture’s report on the matter. The same extensive report also makes no reference whatsoever to McAdam Food Products supplying ABP with beef containing horse DNA and McAdam fully expects that this will be further clarified in the High Court.”

The beef processing industry in Ireland and Britain has since got a clean bill of health following a series of sample tests by European officials for horsemeat contamination.

“The received documents did not contain specific information as to the details of the proceedings and the company is awaiting this information from McAdam Food Products,” a spokesman said.

“ABP does not believe that there is any basis for the claim or that it has damaged Mr McAdam’s reputation or the reputation of McAdam Food Products.

“ABP has every intention of fighting this spurious claim and is continuing to investigate its legal options against McAdam Food Products and other parties who are found to have supplied beef contaminated by horse meat. It is not appropriate for ABP to comment further in the circumstances.”