There are very few of us – individuals and corporate bodies – who want nasty stories about our activities to appear in the papers. And those of us who anticipate such an event and feel we are justified in protecting our privacy have the option to instruct specialist lawyers like Carter Ruck to do what they can in the British courts to bring that about. It is after all the courts, not national newspapers who administer justice in this country.

          In the case of Trafigura, there’s little doubt that they were at fault, and in due course, this would have emerged as a result of Paul Farrelly’s questioning in the House of Commons and the availability of parliamentary records online (aided by Stephen Fry’s relentless twittering). It is irrational to want to shoot Carter Ruck for being Trafigura’s messenger. In law everyone is entitled to defend his/her position.

          And it’s worth remembering that these kinds of super-injunctions aren’t only used by large sinful corporations.

          Sometimes journalists use them too – take the case of Andrew Marr last year [see: http://www.peterburden.net/archives/18], when he sought and was granted an injunction against the reporting of an injunction over a court case involving his private life – a protection of his privacy to which he was perfectly entitled. It’s not important whether or not he employed Carter Ruck (he may have done; I haven’t checked), but it was important that his lawyers could use this legal tool.

          It makes no sense to get excitable and decry a useful aspect of the law while lambasting those who take advantage of that law, on the grounds that sometimes evil-doers take temporary cover under it. And you can’t blame Carter Ruck for trying – especially when, as a result of the provisions of the 1689 English Bill of Rights, they failed.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Of the many shamelessly self-promoting food processors currently crawling all over British television screens, Gordon Ramsay is the least appealing. That he should allegedly have ended up with one of Jeffrey “Pinocchio” Archer’s cast-offs is about what he deserves, especially one who’s so cheap she’s happily sold her story and posed for the country’s most pernicious Shag Rag.

But even foul-mouthed, culinary bullies are entitled to privacy – however many more alleged lovers the Screws may try to haul from his cupboard.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Independent’s Legal Forum has commented on what it describes as a “LIBEL TOURIST INVASION.”

The use of “Invasion”, in a way that is uncharacteristic of the Indie, gives an indication of the paper’s position as it sets out to describe how a number of American celebrities – Cameron Diaz, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, among others – who have been subjects of defamatory stories in the American press have found it more effective to sue these publications in Belfast or London, on the grounds that UK editions are available, or the information can be seen by British readers on the papers’ websites.

Popularity: 1% [?]