The Easter legal term ended on Friday 24 May 2019.  The Trinity Legal Term begins on Tuesday 4 June 2019.  Inforrm is, therefore, taking a “mini-break” but this round up will cover some of the news of the past week.

Our usual “Weekly Round Up” service will resume again on Monday 11 June 2019.

The biggest international media law story of the week comes from Australia. On 23 May 2019, the Geoffrey Rush holds the record for the largest defamation payout to a single person in Australia after The Daily Telegraph agreed to pay the actor almost £1.5 million for a series of reports accusing him of “inappropriate behaviour” towards a female actor. There were reports on the decision in, among other places, the Press Gazette, Sydney Morning Herald, the Guardian.

Saturday 25 May 2019 was the first birthday of the GDPR.  The European Data Protection Board has a post on “taking stock”, including up to date enforcement figures. The Panopticon blog wishes the GDPR happy birthday but asks what has happened to the e-Privacy Regulation.  We had a post on “Digital Age of Consent: One year on”

In the English Courts, on 24 May 2019, Jay J handed down judgment following the meaning trial in the case of  Travel Insurance Facilities Plc (t/a Tifgroup) v Times Newspapers ([2019] EWHC 1337 (QB)) .  The Judge held that the words complained of bore Chase Level 1½ meanings (“strong grounds to suspect”).

On 23 and 24 May 2019 there were the first two days of a CMC in the case of Various Claimants v MGN Ltd before Mann J. This hearing dealt with case management and disclosure issues held over from the 15th CMC in December 2018. The CMC will continue on 4 and 5 June 2019 will deal with MGN’s strike out application.  There were two reports of the CMC on Byline.com, here and here.

The MailOnline has agreed to pay libel damages and legal costs to barrister Barbara Hewson after repeating allegations made in The Times that she was responsible for making death threats to a law student.

IPSO has commissioned research into standard of UK Media reporting of transgender issues.

And in Ireland a man who claimed he was branded part of a criminal gang after a security tag alarm sounded in a sports store lost his defamation case which Ms Justice Jacqueline Linnane called ‘an appalling waste of time’.

Judgments

The following reserved judgments after public hearings in media law cases are outstanding:

Butt v Secretary of State for the Home Department, heard 17 October 2018 (Underhill V-P, Sharp LJ and Sir Rupert Jackson).

Lachaux v Independent Print, heard 13 and 14 November 2018 (UKSC)

Bull v Desporte, heard 25 to 28 March 2019 (Julian Knowles J)

Sadik v Sadik, heard 2 April 2019 (Julian Knowles J).

Otuo v The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (heard 12-14 and 25 to 29 March, 1 and 15 April 2019 ( Richard Spearman QC).

Morgan v Times Newspapers Ltd, heard 13 May 2019 (Soole J).

Please let us know if there are any which need to be added to this list