Exclusive: A discreet lobbying campaign by lawyers who have acted for oligarchs and the super-rich told government that reforming England's libel laws was too difficult.
Cormac Kehoe was in the semi-arid mountains above Málaga last August when he received an unexpected email. A county court in Bromley, south-east London, was ordering him to pay £10,000 for “defamation, aggravated harm and loss of business”. The 28-year-old freelance reporter didn’t even know a libel claim had been made. But the claimant’s name was very familiar: Claudio Di Giovanni.
Before taking a rare week off in the Andalusian hills, Kehoe had published an investigation into Di Giovanni’s property empire on the Londoner website. Now the Italian was suing him personally for libel. “It’s a nightmare, really. You’re trying to take a break from the relentless torrent of work and then you are suddenly faced with this prospect of financial ruin,” Kehoe said. Di Giovanni later filed a separate suit claiming £250,000 in damages.
Cases like Kehoe’s were supposed to be a thing of the past. London has long been called “the libel capital of the world”.
Continue @ Democracy For Sale.
No comments