High Court declines to refuse jurisdiction: The High Court refused the Defendant’s application to decline jurisdiction on the basis that it could not have a fair trial as Russian law prevented it from identifying a witness when the evidence was that the witnesses’ identity was not so protected and in any event the significance of that was unclear as the Defendant had not identified the nature of its defence.
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Claimants must accept or reject an offers of amends within a reasonable time: A Claimant was not entitled to leave open the question of whether or not it was accepting or rejecting a Defendant’s offer of amends under s.2 of the Defamation Act 1996 and was ordered to accept or reject the offer within a reasonable time.
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Postings on internet bulletin boards may be treated as slanders: In continuing the stay of a large number of claims issued in respect of postings on internet bulletin boards, Eady J commented that such claims may fall to be treated as slanders rather than libels.
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Reynolds privilege rightly rejected in Cypriot politician’s claim: The European Court of Human Rights dismissed a complaint that a Reynolds privilege defence had been wrongly rejected by the Cypriot courts. The Applicants had made serious allegations against a politician and had failed to substantiate them.
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Single-meaning and repetition rules disapplied where part of article protected by statutory qualified privilege: Where part of the article complained of was protected by statutory qualified privilege, the meaning of the remainder of the article had to be determined without application of the repetition rule; an exception to the single-meaning rule was required.
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Detailed comparison with personal injury awards not appropriate: When determining damages for libel it was not appropriate to make detailed comparisons with personal injury awards, although they could be used as a general test for reasonableness, as could previous awards made by judges (as opposed to juries). Defendants means were irrelevant.
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Reports by Charity Commission protected by traditional qualified privilege: The publication by the Charity Commission on its website of the results of an inquiry it had carried out under s.8 of the Charities Act 1993 into a charity was published on an occasion of traditional qualified privilege and there was no need to consider Reynolds privilege.
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Norwich Pharmacal applications for identities of website posters reviewed: A judge had been entitled not to accede to a request for orders for the disclosure of the IP addresses of computers used to make allegedly defamatory remarks on a financial services web forum.
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Limitation period disapplied: The court’s discretion to disapply the limitation period under s.32A of the Limitation Act 1980 was excercised where there was evidence that the Defendant was involved in the publication of a number of very serious defamatory statements on the internet and it was important that all those responsible were brought before it.
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Fair comment – errors of fact may not be fatal; other defamatory publications cannot be relied upon in mitigation: In a libel claim concerning allegations of the irresponsible sale of vitamins to treat HIV and AIDS, the Claimant applied to strike out various parts of the defence. Tugendhat J held, inter alia, that an error in the facts stated in the article might not be fatal to a fair comment defence by virtue of s.6 of the Defamation Act 1952, and that previous articles about which the Claiman ...
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