Australian Wool Growers Association (AWGA) chairman, Martin Oppenheimer, has issued a written apology to former Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) chair Ian McLachlan.

In the statement, Mr Oppenheimer acknowledged that: "Mr McLachlan has no financial interest in the mulesing clip technology and that he and the other inventor of the clips assigned all of their rights in relation to the clips to AWI in 2005 without seeking or receiving any payment or consideration."

The accusation was made in an AWGA media release on March 4 this year and was repeated by Mr Oppenheimer on ABC radio on the same day.

Mr McLachlan replied to the accusations by filing a private defamation case against Mr Oppenheimer through Blake Dawson lawyers, the same firm employed by AWI to fight animal activists.

The defamation case against Mr Oppenheimer did not go to court and Mr McLachlan accepted the apology late last week.

Mr Oppenheimer said he was happy to make the apology as he was "not into legal cases".

The statement goes on to mention how Mr Oppenheimer "withdraws any suggestion in the press release that Mr McLachlan has acted improperly by participating in the decision by AWI to allocate funding towards mulesing clips".

"Mr Oppenheimer acknowledges that Mr Mclachlan supports a range of possible long-term solutions designed to eliminate the need for mulesing altogether, and supports the use of pain relief as an interim solution to the issue of mulesing in the meantime," the apology reads.

AWI yesterday accepted an apology from the ABC for its role in broadcasting the comments.