RPC Privacy Law

The latest news in privacy law

Subscribe to feed Viewing entries tagged injunctions

Financier granted permanent anonymity in defamation proceedings

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Harry Kinmonth

Proceedings have finally drawn to a close in the case of ZAM v CFW & TFW, which involved a financier who claimed to have been libelled by his sister-in-law (the first defendant) and her husband (the second defendant). The claim centred on the second defendant who had threatened to tell and then... read more

When can you sue under a disguised name?

Posted on May 03, 2012 by Keith Mathieson

In what circumstances can a claimant in civil litigation commence proceedings under a pseudonym? We are familiar with alphabetised claimants in injunction cases who seek anonymity on grounds that the purpose of their proceedings would otherwise be defeated: if the cheating footballer/act... read more

Parliamentary committee reports on privacy

Posted on April 09, 2012 by Keith Mathieson

The Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions has reported. Click here for a link to the full report. The most important recommendations of the committee, which was set up last year and has taken evidence from a wide variety of sources, are (a) that there should be no new privacy statut... read more

Chief Executive of Ann Summers gets privacy injunction

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Harry Kinmonth

Mr Justice Tugendhat has today handed down a short judgment explaining why he made an interlocutory order to prevent the publication of private and confidential information about Jacqueline Gold, the high-profile Chief Executive of Ann Summers. The first defendant in the application was Allison Cox... read more

Cabinet minister's 17-year-old son gets privacy injunction but not anonymity

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Keith Mathieson

The son of Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, has obtained an injunction against the publishers of the Daily Star Sunday. The judgment is reported here. The injunction was granted to restrain publication of a story which it is alleged would have breached his right to privacy.&n... read more

New Injunction Guidance

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Brid Jordan

We have previously reported on the controversy surrounding the number and effect of privacy injunctions (see links here and here). This controversy led in part to the formation in April 2010 of the Super-Injunction Committee, chaired by the Master of The Rolls, Lord Neuberger. It was tasked with rev... read more

A "tenuous claim to privacy": Hutcheson v News Group

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

Can you expect to keep a second family private? That was the ambitious hope of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson. Mr Hutcheson got married in 1968. He and his wife had four children, all now grown up. He remains married to his wife, but in the meantime, since about 1... read more

Justice Secretary expresses concern over MPs defying injunctions

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

The Times has today reported that the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke yesterday told the Joint Committee on the Defamation Bill that he was concerned about the growing habit of using parliamentary privilege to defy court gagging orders. He told the committee that the Government was looking at the pro... read more

A former judge reflects on privacy injunctions

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

Mr Justice Eady's interview last month by Joshua Rosenberg - published by Index on Censorship -was featured on a recent edition of Radio Four's Today programme and has also been the subject of entries on the Inforrm and Meeja Law blogs. An interesting essay by Stephen Sedley, the recently retired C... read more

A digest of recent news (1) - UK judgments

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

For one reason and another, the blog has been unable to report on much of the recent news. This entry is an attempt to remedy the situation. Normal service should be resumed shortly. UK court judgments MJN v News Group A footballer case where the Sun wished to publish the account by a lingerie ... read more

Are privacy injunctions too restrictive?

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

Has privacy law gone too far? It’s not just the editor of the Daily Mail who thinks so. The Prime Minister has said he is “uneasy” about judges “creating a sort of privacy law” and Andrew Marr is perhaps the first (and probably the last) privacy claimant to express embarrassment over his own injun... read more

The effect of privacy injunctions on third parties

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

In general, an injunction made against a defendant does not affect a third party. That proposition is, however, subject to the well-known Spycatcher principle, which is that an interlocutory injunction preventing a person from disclosing private and/or confidential information also prevents third p... read more

Workplace affairs are private - especially if one half of the couple has children

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

The Court of Appeal's judgment in ETK v News Group [2011] EWCA Civ 439 has prompted gasps of horror from some sections of the media. That is not surprising. What may be more surprising is that the public, often suspicious of media self-interest in these matters, may in this case think the newspape... read more

Super Injunctions: committee reporting soon

Posted on April 08, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

By the end of this month we expect the committee investigating super injunctions to publish its report. The committee is chaired by the Master of Rolls, Lord Neuberger, who has said in a recent speech that he expects his report to appear before the end of April. In view of recent press coverage of ... read more

Another ruling on privacy injunctions

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Kim Waite

Judgment was handed down today in a case where a privacy injunction was made in 2008. That was only some two years ago, but two years is a long time in privacy law and particularly in the fast-moving area of injunctions, superinjunctions and anonymity. The case is Goldsmith and Khan v B... read more

Shock decision: sportsman not unmasked

Posted on February 01, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

The identity of the sportsman officially known as JIH remains confidential. Those newspapers hoping to unmask him in the event that the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Tugendhat J have had to content themselves with short court reports accompanied by silhouettes (presumably not of the real p... read more

A mass outbreak of anonymity: CDE and FGH v MGN and LMN

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

It is not unusual for claimants in privacy cases to be anonymised. It is less common for defendants and distinctly unusual for non-parties. The effect of Eady J's order in CDE v MGN [2010] EWHC 3308 is that we do not know the identity of the two claimants, the second defendant, her solicitor, her ... read more

Should the parties in privacy cases be anonymised? - a summary of the recent judgments

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

Since the end of the summer at least eight judgments have considered whether the parties to successful applications for privacy injunctions should be anonymised. The results (in chronological order) are as follows: DFT v TFD: both parties anonymised. AMM v HXW: both parties anonymised. Gray v UV... read more

Super-injunctions - an update

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

Super-injunctions are injunctions that prevent publication of the fact that the court has made an injunction. It is now clear that they will be granted only in those rare cases where publication of the order would frustrate the very purpose of the order or where there is some other unusual and comp... read more

No injunction for local authority that failed to give notice to media

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

A judge has refused to make an order gagging media organisations who were not given proper notice of the application for the order. In Re Jane (a fictitious name) (A Child) [2010] EWHC 3221 (Fam) Holman J made an order restricting reporting about a child subject to an interim care order but the or... read more

Start
Prev
1

Next

End

About this blog

RPC Privacy Law Articles

This blog features regular postings on developments in UK privacy law written by specialist lawyers at RPC. The postings are intended to keep RPC's Privacy Law Handbook (see below) as up-to-date as possible and while postings do refer readers to relevant sections of the book, we hope and intend that the blog will also be a useful source of current information to those without access to the book.