Blog
The jury’s out – for good?
Posted on 28 June 2012 by Carter-Ruck
Last week a jury awarded a total of £60,000 in libel damages to Luke Cooper, a graduate student and part-time university tutor, who had been libelled by the Evening Standard and the Daily Mail. The jury unanimously found that allegations that Mr Cooper was a ringleader who planned to hijack a peaceful demonstration against education cuts, and that he was one of the “hardcore” who organised the riot at the Conservative Party’s headquarters were not true.
New obligations for website operators under the Defamation Bill
Posted on 13 June 2012 by
The problems that arise when defamatory material is posted online can make the task of a potential libel complainant, and that of his advisors, a particularly complex one. Jurisdictional concerns, and the need to establish the extent to which the material has been read (and so published) within England and Wales, can be thorny issues to address. However, in many instances a complainant is faced with an even more immediate problem, namely that the allegations have been published anonymously.
The Defamation Costs Budgeting Scheme – Ignore It at Your Peril
Posted on 11 June 2012 by Carter-Ruck
We read with interest the recent judgement in Silvia Henry -v- News Group Newspapers (SCCO Ref: PTH 1106483) on the subject of the Defamation Proceedings Costs Management Scheme under CPR Practice Direction 51D (“the Scheme”) which applies to all libel and malicious falsehood cases issued after 1 October 2009, the primary requirements of which are set out below.
Phone Hacking Litigation: Round Two
Posted on 01 June 2012 by Carter-Ruck
While the Leveson Inquiry and Operation Weeting (the police investigation into phone hacking) carry on amid considerable public attention, the third aspect of the fallout from the phone hacking affair, the civil claims against News Group Newspapers (NGN), also continues.
