More free speech protection, earlier dispute resolution and lower costs recommended!

Report of the UK's Joint Committee on the draft Defamation Bill

Taylor Wessing summarises the report and provides commentary on the key recommendations, which include:

• A "serious and substantial harm" threshold
• Corporations can only sue if they obtain permission from the court and prove substantial financial loss
• The court's taking into account "any reasonable editorial judgment of the publisher on the tone and timing of the publication" as a factor for the public interest defence
• Renaming justification as "substantial truth"
• Extending the qualified privilege to peer-reviewed articles in scientific or academic journals
• Widening the proposed single publication rule to protect anyone who republishes the same material in a similar manner after it has been in the public domain for more than one year
• Bolstering the anti-libel tourism clause
• Specific provisions on an intermediary defence whereby:
• posts by identifiable posters can remain online provided a notice of complaint is promptly published beside the material, unless the claimant has obtained a "take-down order"
• anonymous posts must be taken down, unless the publisher obtains a "leave-up" order
• Procedures to reduce costs including:
• a presumption that mediation or neutral evaluation be the norm
• voluntary arbitration; and if the claim has not been settled, early court determination of key issues (such as substantial harm, meaning, fact / opinion, public interest and privilege) using improved procedures.

The draft Bill will now be sent to the House of Commons for the first reading.

Click here for our summary and commentary.

Lawyers Timothy Pinto