ACT NOW! has filed complaints with the Australian Stock Exchange and Australian Investments and Securities Commission about Highlands Pacific Ltd and its involvement with the Ramu nickel mine in Papua New Guinea.

ACT NOW! has complained that Highlands Pacific has both published misleading information and has failed to publish relevant information relating to the Ramu mine's waste dumping plans that might affect the company's share price. 

Highlands Pacific has a stake in the Ramu nickel mine which plans to dump 100 million tons of mine waste into the sea. Those plans are currently being challenged by local landowners concerned about the pollution of their seas.

The ACT NOW! complaint is based on two disclosure statements issued by Highlands Pacific to the Australian Stock Exchange on 16 July and 27 September this year (which can be downloaded below).

In the first statement, Highlands Pacific claimed "in June the PNG Government passed an Environmental Regulation reaffirming the validity of the Ramu project's permit".

ACT NOW! says this statement was simply untrue, as it is not aware of any Environmental Regulations relating to the Ramu mine being passed in June and no Regulations have reaffirmed the validity of the Ramu project's permit.

Highlands Pacific also said in the same statement that a legal claim against the waste dumping was not supported by the legally recognised landowners who 'have consistently shown their strong support for the Ramu project and for the tailings disposal method'.

ACT NOW! says this statement was misleading as there ere are no legally recognised landowners. Instead there are 360 landowner clans and groups who have 60 registered land disputes with the Land Titles Commissioner over the area covered by the mine and none of these disputes has yet been resolved.

ACT NOW! has also complained that although Highlands Pacific made a disclosure statement on 27 September informing the market that a legal claim against the mine had been dropped and a temporary injunction against the construction of the mine waste dumping system lifted, it has subsequently failed to update this information.

Specifically, says ACT NOW!, Highlands Pacific has failed to inform the market that a second legal claim has been filed and on 30 September, lawyers for the mine gave a new legal undertaking that the mine would not begin construction of its mine waste dumping system until at least 15 October. That undertaking has since been extended to 22 October.