International Law

Record online libel damages awarded in UK

The Guardian reports on record online libel damages awarded in the UK:

A social housing firm and its owner have been awarded the UK's highest internet libel damages at the high court after an anonymous news and discussion site agreed to pay £100,000 compensation following a campaign of defamation and harassment.

Gentoo, formerly the Sunderland Housing Group, became the subject of an attack by "a seriously defamatory, abusive and scurrilous anonymous website at dadsplace.co.uk", according to a statement read in open court by the organisation's counsel, Hugh Tomlinson QC, before Mr Justice Eady today.

"From behind their cloak of anonymity, Dads Place used their publications and in particular the website to conduct a malicious, unpleasant and relentless campaign of libel and harassment," Hugh Tomlinson QC told the high court.

...

Tomlinson told the high court: "Those responsible for the publication of the Dads Place Publications took careful steps to conceal their identities and it took many months of painstaking investigation to identify just some of those responsible for Dads Place and bring proceedings against them.

"As a result of those proceedings the website was finally shut down in July 2006."

[Gentoo chief executive, Peter] Walls added: "It has taken us almost three years for this company to achieve this crucial result. There is no doubt that the internet can be a fantastic tool for good but we urgently need legal change to enable victims of internet abuse to have a quicker and more effective route to justice."

Olswang associate Ashley Hurst, who acted for Gentoo and Walls in the case, called for a code of conduct for web publishers.

"It is difficult to see how the government can legislate effectively in this area because technology moves faster than the courts and there are always new technical loopholes to exploit," Hurst said.

"But one option may be to develop the remit of the Press Complaints Commission, or develop a voluntary code of conduct so that at least reputable websites can distinguish themselves from the rogue ones by signing up to the code as a badge of credibility."

Read more here.

Full post as published by Freedom to Differ on April 07, 2008 (boomark / email).