The 2024 figures for new claims issued in the Media and Communications List of the King’s Bench Division (“the M&C List”) show a marked decline from 2023.   According to data derived from HM Courts and Tribunals E-Filing Service a total of 174 new claims were issued in 2024, an 18% fall from the 213 claims issued in 2023.

The fall in the number of issued claims was particularly striking in the second half of the year – only 54 new claims were issued in the six months from 1 July to 31 December 2024, just over half the 2013 figure for the same period (102).

The annual 2022 figure was 202, itself a 64% decrease on  2021 when a total of 564 new claims were issued.  That was, itself, a 50% increase on the number of claims issued in 2020 (373).

The number of new defamation claims has been declining over the past 5 years.   In 2024 there were 101  new defamation claims issued in the M&C List,  the 2023 figure was 111 the 2022 figure was 130, the 2021 figure was 168 and that for 2020 was 147.  These figures represent a very substantial reduction from 2019’s high of 323 issued claims.

The number of “privacy” claims remains extremely low and is also declining.  There were only 13 claims classified as “misuse of private information” or “breach of privacy” issued in 2024.  The figures for the previous four years were: 2023 -17;  2022 – 22; 2021 – 20, 2020 –  41.

After defamation the largest category of new claims was data protection, with 20 issued claims.  The 2023 figure was 22,  in 2022 there were 21 cases classified in this category – in contrast to 293 in 2021 and 126 in 2020.

The position in relation to issued claims in other categories is as follows

  • Harassment –   8 claims (2023 – 11, 2022 -8 claims, 2021, 12 claims, 2020, 16 claims)
  • Norwich Pharmacal – 8 claims (2023 -11 claims; 2022 -21 claims, 2021, 27 claims, 2020, 14 claims)
  • 1 claim, (2022, 2 claims, 2021, 2 claims 2020, 5 claims).

We analysed claims in 2023, here, 2022 here, in 2021 here and in 2020 here.  Robert Sharp carried out a fuller analysis for 2020 here).

As in 2022 and 2023 , a striking feature of the 2024 claims in the M&C List is that a very small number of defamation claims were brought against national newspapers and broadcasters.  There were only 6 claims issued against national newspapers in 2024 (2023 – -8; 2022, 9; 2021, 5; 2020, 21): 2 against Associated Newspapers Limited, the publishers of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday,  and 1 each against Times Newspapers Limited, Telegraph Media Group Ltd,  The Financial Times and Guardian News and Media.

These figures must be viewed with a degree of caution.  The classification of cases is an administrative act and is not always accurate.  Many cases include claims for several causes of action and their categorisation may not always reflect the substantive nature of the claim.  Nevertheless, it is clear that overall the 2024 figures show a continuing (and apparently accelerating) decline in the number of issued cases.  A number of reasons for this decline have been suggested including  a perception that it has become more difficult to establish “serious harm” under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, the huge cost of bringing a defamation action to trial, the transfer of data protection claims to the small claims court and the strict limits imposed on Norwich Pharmacal applications

One  interesting footnote to the 2024 figures.  The Caseboard website enables searches of issued cases in the M&C List (and other lists) to be carried out by the names of the solicitors on the e-file. The figures show that the litigation in this area is spread across a wide range of firms.  Many well known firms were listed for only one M&C List case in 2024, with only a few involved in more than 2 cases.  In terms of claims issued in the M&C List, the leading solicitors in 2024 were as follows

5 –  Carter Ruck, Brett Wilson
4 –  Patron Law.

In terms of claims defended, the leading firms were

7 – Government Legal Department
3 – RPC, SMAB, Wiggin

Once again, Before readers protest that their firms have been misrepresented in these figures, we should emphasise that they must be viewed with some caution as we have not verified the reliability of the search function and the names of solicitors are not always recorded on the e-file.