Results tagged “philip gray” from LDP - The Legal Week

THIS story caught my eye yesterday and from a libel lawyer's point of view it is a very interesting case in view of the role played by Twitter.

In my opinion, it is the impact of Twitter and that of blogs and other social media which is of real note here as it unquestionably changed the nature of the case.

Jon asks whether we have we reached a stage where technology has overtaken the legal process?

ONE characteristic of the downturn in the property market is a swing in the balance of power towards business tenants involved in lease negotiations.

Unsurprisingly the last twelve months has seen a general decline in new commercial property tenancies coupled with an unfortunate but inevitable rise in tenant insolvencies.

The result has been a significantly reduced demand for business tenancies causing landlords to suffer lower rental incomes and increased rates for the empty properties, this is something tenants can exploit to their advantage.

KIRWANS solicitor Philip Gray replies to a comment left on his earlier post on the prospective reform of legal costs in libel actions, which can be found here.

Simon - Thank you for your comments. Dealing with your first point, the principal of proportionality implies that unless there is good reason, costs should not exceed the value of a claim.

Of course there are a number of reasons why it may be just to allow costs to exceed the value of the claim, a good example being libel actions, where the claimant is primarily concerned with vindicating her reputation rather than receiving limited damages.

A RECENT decision by the High Court which will affect bloggers everywhere was handed by Mr Justice Eady last month.

This was the judge, you may recall, who awarded Max Mosley £60,000 plus costs in his privacy claim against News Group Newspapers, thereby incurring the wrath of many journalists.

Well this time Mr Justice Eady has come down on the side of a newspaper, The Times, after a blogger applied to Court for an injunction restraining the paper from exposing his identity.

Last month a UN Report heavily criticized Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs - commonly referred to as no-win no-fee arrangements) now the Editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail, Mr Paul Dacre has strongly voiced his concerns over the use of CFAs by "unscrupulous" lawyers whose "scandalous greed" ramps up costs in cases involving the media.

Mr Dacre told the Society of Editors conference in Bristol on Sunday night that the combination of the current libel laws and use of CFAs meant that even well-resourced media groups like his own, Associated Newspapers, feared the financial implications of contesting certain libel and privacy actions and added that it was beyond the means of local newspapers to contest even the most factually straight forward of claims.