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Media and Law: Review of Defamation, Privacy and other Media Cases in 2016

INFORRM

The last year was a relatively quiet one in the English media law courts, with only two defamation trials involving the media (and none involving the national press).  The most high profile case of the year was the privacy injunction in PJS v NGN.  Our case comment on the original injunction attracted a record number of visitors.

Defamation

Our Table of Media Law cases records only 37 decisions of all kinds in defamation cases in 2016 (down from 56 in 2015). There were none in the Supreme Court, and only one in the Court of Appeal (although there were hearings in another 4 in which judgment is awaited in 2017).

There were 8 full defamation trials in 2016 (2015, 7) with the claimants succeeding in 3 of them, that is 38% (2015, 43%).

There were three “damages only” trials

There were also a number of “preliminary issues trials”

The only Court of Appeal judgment in 2016 was in Simpson v MGN [2016] EWCA Civ 772. We had a case comment criticising the decision but the Supreme Court later refused permission to appeal.

Privacy and Breach of Confidence

There were four trials involving claims for breach of confidence/misuse of private information

There was something of a resurgence in privacy injunctions in 2016 with public judgments in 5 cases:

The PJS case had, of course, a “second round”, when the defendant sought to have the injunction set aside on the basis it had become pointless.  It succeeded in the Court of Appeal [2016] EWCA Civ 393 (see our case comment) but failed in the Supreme Court [2016] UKSC 26.  The position was summed up in the title of our case comment: “Supreme Court restores interim injunction in landmark privacy case”.  The case subsequently settled ([2016] EWHC 2770 (QB))(see our case comment).

Phone Hacking

In the Chancery Division, Mann J continues to manage both the News Group and the Mirror Group phone hacking litigation.  In a judgment handed down in April 2016 ([2016] EWHC 961 (Ch)) he permitted claimants to amend their statements of case to plead phone hacking claims against the Sun.

Conditional Fee Agreements

There were two decisions by first instance judges upholding Conditional Fee Agreements and After the Event Insurance as compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights:

In both cases the defendant was given “leapfrog” permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.  These two appeals – along with that against the 2014 decision in Flood v Times Newspapers [2014] EWCA Civ 1574 – will be heard by the Supreme Court on 24 to 26 January 2017.

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