Legal Commentary

Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi citizen who brought several defamation lawsuits in Great Britain against United States writers and publishers who accused him of supporting and funding terrorism, has died at 60. (H/T: Greg Wallach of FIU College of Law).

Most recently (and famously), bin Mahfouz won a $200,000 default judgment against American journalist Rachel Ehrenfeld for her book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed ? and How to Stop It. Ehrenfeld fought back by trying to get a federal injunction against U.S. enforcement of that judgment, which failed for jurisdictional reasons. Ehrenfeld then became a vocal advocate for Libel Tourism (or Libel Terrorism) laws at the state and federal levels. These bills would at a minimum make unenforceable in the United States any foreign defamation judgment against speech that is protected by the First Amendment. They would, at a maximum, establish special jurisdictional rules for domestic actions enjoining enforcement, and providing for "clawback" of the amount of any foreign judgment. I have written previously about the many problems with the more-expansive bills and was part of a panel on the subject at SEALS earlier this month.

I wonder what this news will do to either push the legislation or further dampen it as an issue.