The 2018-2019 legal year in England and Wales ended on Wednesday 31 July 2019. The civil courts in England and Wales are now on “Summer Vacation” for 2 months until the Michaelmas term begins on 1 October 2019.
The Inforrm blog is now taking a summer break until the end of September. We thank all our readers and contributors who have supported us over the past year. Posting will continue over the summer but will not be as regular as usual.
We have now had nearly 4.8 million page views in the 9½ years we have been publishing since February 2010. There have been over 4,700 posts from dozens of different contributors.
We have, over this period, sought to cover the full range of media and law issues – from the “libel reform” debate, through “super injunction spring” and phone hacking firestorm” into issues of media regulation and the impact of the Defamation Act 2013, the “right to delist” and the impact of the GDPR.
A number of important media law cases have been decided by the English courts in the past 12 months including:
- Lachaux v Independent Print [2019] 3 WLR 18 – the Supreme Court providing a definitive (defendant friendly) analysis of the “serious harm” requirement in section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013. See our case comment from Mathilde Groppo.
- Serafin v Malkiewicz [2019] EWCA Civ 852 – the Court of Appeal decisively overturning Jay J’s dismissal of a libel action. See our case comment from Samuel Rowe. The Supreme Court has given permission to appeal.
- ZXC v Bloomberg LP [2019] EWHC 970 (QB) – a judgment after trial from Nicklin J in a “criminal investigation” privacy case. See our case comment from Nathan Capone.
- Monir v Wood [2018] EWHC 3525 (QB) – a judgment after trial from Nicklin J in a “Twitter libel” case. See our case comment from Media Lawyer.
- ABC v Telegraph Media Group [2018] EWCA Civ 2329 – in which the Court of Appeal granted an interim privacy injunction (which was then subsequently overtaken by the naming of the claimant, Sir Philip Green, in Parliament). See our case comment by Persephone Bridgman Baker (and our piece on the “naming” by Paul Wragg).
All these and many other media and law stories have been extensively covered on Inforrm over the past year. The top ten new posts of the past 12 months were as follows:
- Top 10 Defamation Cases of 2018: a selection – Suneet Sharma
- Lord Hain and Privilege: When power, wealth and abuse combine to subvert the rule of law – Paul Wragg
- Top 10 Privacy and Data Protection Cases of 2018: a selection
- Drone hysteria and the serial privacy invaders of the British Press – Hugh Tomlinson QC
- Case Law: Grayling v North, Brexiteer ordered to pay philosopher £20,000 in libel damages for paedophile tweet – Iain Wilson
- If you don’t want the Daily Mail and the Sun receive public subsidies you need to say so now – Brian Cathcart
- On its 10th Anniversary, Here are 10 Reasons to be Concerned about the “Extreme” Pornography Law – Tara Beattie
- Case Law: Economou v de Freitas, Court of Appeal guidance on “public interest” defence – Dominic Garner
- Case Law: ABC v Telegraph Media Group: NDAs and Interim Injunctions, is there ever a public interest in breach of confidence? – Persephone Bridgman Baker
- Libel Injunctions: Time to revisit the rule in Bonnard v Perryman? – Helena Shipman
Please let us know if you would like to make a contribution or if there you think that are any other topics that we should be covering on Inforrm.
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