Carter-Ruck, acting on behalf of Trafigura, sought to restrict a liberty hard-won by John Wilkes – reporting what happens in Parliament. The details are here, but revolve around an injunction stopping publication of a written question in parliament in the Guardian.

From the Order Book, q 61.

“To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.”

This has to be considered a #fail¹ as the Twitterverse and blogosphere went predictably bananas. In short order, Trafigura were told to Carter-Fuck off. The good that comes of this is that, thanks to the LibDems, there will be a debate on this in the Commons. There has been murmuring for some time about the iniquity of British libel laws and the dangers posed by libel tourism; this may be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

xD.

1 – Just in case anyone from Carter-Ruck is reading, that word was #fail, not fail.

Posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Categories: Justice.
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