Defamation

[Oscar Benjamin]

On 22 October 2015 at 12:36, Laura Creighton <lac at openend.se> wrote:
>
> The UK libel reform act of 2013, I see, may be responsible for
> the decline in libel tourism.
> http://www.libelreform.org/

Yes I think so. From Wikipedia:
"""
A court does not have jurisdiction to hear and determine any action,
unless the court is satisfied that, of all the places in which the
statement complained of has been published, England and Wales is
clearly the most appropriate.
"""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013#Jurisdiction

Libel tourism cases often would occur for a foreign publication that
was not distributed in printed form in the UK but had a website that
was globally accessible. A case might be brought on the strength of
say a hundred UK downloads from the website despite the publication
having a printed circulation of hundreds of thousands in some other
country (and the authors and complainants all being in the same other
country). I can't recall any specific cases right now though...

If the court needs to be satisfied that England and Wales is the
_most_ appropriate place to hear the case then this would rule out the
libel tourism cases I used to hear about. Apparently this only applies
to England and Wales though leaving Northern Ireland as a new
preferred location for libel tourism.

--
Oscar