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Libel games
By Steven | November 10, 2009
London is known as the libel capital of the world. But I was chatting to Melbourne Law School professor Andrew Kenyon last week, and he said that there is a country whose defamation laws are even more plaintiff-friendly than England’s: Australia.
US-based internet game company Ebony [ooops, it’s Evony, as Russell points out in the comments – I got it right below] seems to be of the same view. It is suing a UK blogger for defamation for criticising it online. It is suing in Australia. Blogger Bruce Everiss has posted the nasty letter on his blog, as well as some prominent links to his criticisms.
How can this be? An Australian High Court decision called Gutnick (the first syllable rhymes with “foot” not “hut”) established that defamation occurs where a publication is downloaded and read, so the Aussie courts have jurisdiction. It doesn’t seem to be contested that the blog has some readers, and the game has some players, in Australia. (I can’t see why the UK courts wouldn’t also have jurisdiction. The same’s also true of the US, but no sensible plaintiff would choose to sue there). It may be that Evony has picked Aussie to make things more awkward for Everiss.
Gutnick provoked much angst and hand-wringing. Everything on the internet is subject to the defamation laws of every country on the planet! Trigger-happy plaintiffs across the globe will flock to the world’s most oppressive legal systems and sue there! This could shut down the internet!
At the time, I doubted this. Still do. For a range of fairly predictable reasons, the rash of lawsuits hasn’t eventuated. Still, libel tourism has always been a problem, and this case may illustrate the continued dangers. Interestingly, the courts in the UK are showing an increasing willingness to reject cases where the publication in the UK is very limited.
Another interesting feature of the case is that Evony is claiming worldwide damages: that is, damages for the harm caused all over the world by Everiss’s blog – not just the harm caused to his reputation among Australian readers. According to Aussie internet law expert Matt Collins, this is a first. The usual practice is for plaintiffs looking to take opportunistic advantage of a favourable jurisdiction is to restrict the claim to reputational damage within the jurisdiction itself. That could be big.
The ABC’s Law Report has a terrific programme on the issues, including interviews with Everiss, Collins, US academic Brian Murchison and Everiss’s Australian lawyer.
Topics: Defamation, Internet issues | Comments Off on Libel games