PORTLAND, Maine — A paper industry newsletter and the former manager of the shuttered Great Northern Paper Co. mills have agreed to settle certain libel claims made against the publication by the chief executive officer of the mill management firm.
The parties notified the U.S. District Court in Bangor of the settlement agreement Thursday. Details of the settlement were not published.
The settlement deals only with Industry Intelligence LLC and plaintiff John Halle, CEO of Cate Street Capital, according to the newsletter’s author, Verle Sutton.
Sutton was also named personally as a defendant in the case initially brought by Halle, Cate Street Capital and GNP Maine Holdings LLC.
Those corporate entities were removed from the case in October, when U.S. Magistrate Judge John Nivison dismissed defamation claims based on three of four passages published in the newsletter.
Nivison had ruled a jury should decide whether the newsletter’s mistaken use of the word “convicted” to describe the outcome of a civil legal action defamed Halle.
Nivison ruled three other passages Sutton published questioning how much in management fees Cate Street charged to Great Northern, stating that “Great Northern’s slow demise might have lined the pockets of Cate Street owners, and perhaps others,” and writing company management had an “unsurpassed incompetence,” were not grounds for a defamation claim.
An attorney for Cate Street did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment Thursday afternoon.