Defamation & privacy protection

Our litigation team has a long history of working with clients in order to protect their valuable reputations. We assist them in a wide variety of circumstances. Our aim is to prevent the publication of defamatory or private information. Where we are instructed after the event, we can advise in relation to available remedies.

We act regularly for companies that need to defend their reputations from adverse media coverage and rival businesses, ex-employees, pressure groups and others disseminating damaging material.

At the pre-publication/broadcast stage, our aim is to negotiate the contents of the article or programme with the editor to protect our client's reputation. Where a breach of privacy or confidentiality is about to take place, we may be able to obtain an emergency injunction to prevent publication altogether, even where the client is in the public eye.

Recent work

  • Advising the Elite Model Agency on defamatory allegations concerning the care of young models made against it by the BBC on MacIntyre Undercover resulting in a full apology.
  • Acting for companies owned by Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay, for example The Ritz and Elleman.
  • Investments, on media matters including obtaining damages, corrections and apologies from newspapers and other media and preventing the publication of private/confidential information.
  • Representing Kakonde Tea Plantation over various articles published about its alleged malpractices by the Mail on Sunday.
  • Advising a Canadian company on defamation and malicious falsehood claims made by a rival in the UK and Italy that its products were unlawful and that it was going out of business.
  • Advising a company on reputation management issues when it had to sack a senior executive who had alleged that it was involved in a cartel.
  • Acting for Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay, their family and companies on media matters, including obtaining corrections, apologies and damages from the media, most recently from The Times and a French magazine, Marianne, as well as a member of Sark's Parliament.