Joseph Isaac Gutnick (sometimes referred to as Diamond Joe) is an Australian businessman. He is well known for his leadership of Great Central Mines and other resource and mining businesses. He is also an ordained Rabbi. He is the President and CEO of Legend International Holdings (OTCBB: LGDI) a mining company focused on Phosphate exploration in the North East of Australia.

He is a former president of the Melbourne Football Club. He is famous in legal circles for suing Dow Jones, in which a precedent was established that material published on the Internet is deemed to be published in the place that it is viewed, not the place of origin.

He is an Orthodox Jew and a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement. According to Gutnick, it was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson who pointed out to him the precise geological points on a map of Australia to commence mining for gold. He is also closely linked to Benjamin Netanyahu and was instrumental in his election as prime minister of Israel in 1996.

Gutnick's link with Israel stems from his role as a member of the Lubavitch group, which has close ties to Israel's Likud Party and the political right. According to a report on the Australian Broadasting Corporation's "The World Today" in 2002, Mr. Gutnick spent millions of dollars in the 1990s campaigning for Benjamin Netanyahu and against the Labor Party in Israel's elections. Mr Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999.

In 1999 he along with partner Robert Champion de Crespigny, were found to have illegally structured a takeover of a mining company and Gutnick was ordered to return $28.5 million to investors. The court found that their behaviour in jointly bidding $450 million earlier that year, for a company called Great Central Mines, was unlawful and deceptive

See also

• Gutnick v Dow Jones

Citations

External links

• "Diamond Joe" Gutnick and the Rebbe's prophecy, article appeared in Forbes Magazine December 2, 1996. (Link tested December 25, 2006).