U.K. lawmakers: govt must act to stop libel tourism

A group of lawmakers urged Britain's government on Wednesday to change plaintiff-friendly libel laws that encourage foreigners to bring cases to U.K. courts, saying the threat of expensive libel suits is stifling investigative journalism and media freedom.

The chairman of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee said it was "a humiliation" that several U.S. states have introduced laws to protect American citizens from the enforcement of legal settlements in foreign jurisdictions such as Britain. A similar federal law is currently before the U.S. Congress.

The committee, which has members from Britain's three main political parties, said in a report that the government must act urgently to redress the balance of libel laws that have "tipped too far in favor of the plaintiff."

"It is a humiliation that U.S. legislators have felt it necessary to take steps to protect freedom of speech from what are seen as unreasonable incursions by our courts," said committee chairman and Conservative legislator John Whittingdale.

Britain's libel laws are considered more claimant-friendly than those in many other countries, leading foreigners to bring lawsuits to Britain they would likely lose in their own countries.

Libel laws in the United States generally require plaintiffs to prove that a published article was both false and written maliciously. In Britain, the burden of proof falls on the defendant to demonstrate what it published was true.

The committee said Britain should consider reversing that burden in libel cases where the plaintiff is a corporation, which generally has much greater resources to fight a case. "It referred to one famous example, a "very unequal legal contest" in which McDonald's sued two environmental protesters for distributing leaflets criticizing the company, sparking an expensive 10-year legal battle known as the "McLibel" case.

It also recommended a reduction in the amount of costs paid by the losing side.

Britain's courts have become a battleground between high-profile figures from around the world and the international media.

In 2006 American actress Kate Hudson successfully sued the National Enquirer for libel in London, relying on the fact that the U.S. publication has a British edition. In another case, a Saudi businessman successfully sued a U.S. academic over a U.S.-published book about the financing of terrorism that had sold only 23 copies in Britain.

The committee said the government should impose "additional hurdles" to litigants not based primarily in Britain.

"There is increasing evidence that in recent years investigative journalism is being deterred by the threat and cost of having to defend libel actions," Whittingdale said.

The committee said there was no need for a law to protect the right to privacy, something that has been called for by the victims of tabloid exposes. But it advised tighter media self-regulation through the Press Complaints Commission, saying that in most cases journalists should have to notify the subjects of stories before publication.

Though Britain has no formal privacy law, it is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing the right to respect for privacy and family life. Celebrities have increasingly used this clause to fight media exposes.

The committee criticized the behavior of one tabloid, the News of the World, whose editor resigned after a reporter was found to have hacked into the phones of British royal officials. The newspaper's royal editor, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator were jailed in 2007 over the hacking.

The committee said phone hacking was likely more widespread at the paper at the time, but the true number of victims would never be known, in part because of the "collective amnesia" of the paper's management.

The lawmakers also said it appeared that some of those involved had been paid off.

"We do not know the amounts, or terms, but we are left with a strong impression that silence has been bought," they said.

The News of the World's publisher, News International, rejected claims of a cover up and accused the committee of "innuendo, unwarranted inference and exaggeration."

The committee has also called for a new law to guarantee the age-old right to report the goings-on of Parliament. That came under fire in October, when the oil-trading company Trafigura obtained a legal injunction that barred reporting of a parliamentary question asked about its role in dumping toxic waste in West Africa. The injunction sparked outrage from the media and was quickly overturned.

"The free and fair reporting of proceedings in Parliament is a cornerstone of our democracy" and must be put "beyond doubt," Whittingdale said.

The government is not obliged to follow the committee's recommendations. But Justice Secretary Jack Straw pledged reform in November, saying libel laws had become "unbalanced."