SLAPP crackle
Legal News , Issue 1635

ANTI-SLAPPs legislation, aimed at outlawing bullying behaviour by rich clients determined to keep public interest coverage of their behaviour out of the media (aka strategic lawsuits against public participation), may have withered on the parliamentary vine with the demise of the last government, but lobbying continues to persuade MPs to resurrect it under Labour.

Last month the UK Anti-SLAPPs Coalition sent a spoof letter to MPs purporting to come from a law firm named Silver, Langston and Percival Partners (SLAPP, geddit?) which showed the blend of menace and peevishness typically deployed by aggressive legal firms when threatening their clients' victims, before directing them to an explanation of how such correspondence threatens the media and freedom of expression.

Society pages
This did not go down well with the Society of Media Lawyers (SML), the lobby group set up by members of firms including Carter-Fuck and Mishcon de Reya to persuade MPs in the opposite direction.

They hit all 650 MPs in turn on 7 October with a four-page whinge complaining: "The spoof letter sought to use satire to incorrectly suggest that there is a SLAPP crisis in the UK and that media lawyers are regularly sending inappropriate and threatening correspondence to suppress the communication of information that is in the public interest."

Hursty work
As usual, SML persists with its implausible claim that such lawsuits are all just a figment of campaigners' imaginations and there is no "empirical evidence" of their existence.

This is despite the fact that as recently as 30 September the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) referred former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi's solicitor Ashley Hurst to a disciplinary panel for breaching his regulator's code of conduct.

Hurst had tried to prevent campaigner Dan Neidle from publishing correspondence threatening legal action over the allegations about Zahawi's tax affairs that ultimately resulted in his sacking as party chairman by Rishi Sunak.

Futile warning
In May, the SRA said it had received reports of more than 70 potential SLAPP actions, and once again warned legal firms not to "get involved in abusive litigation aimed at silencing legitimate critics".

The SMELLIES even had the brass neck to raise the examples of two books by British journalists that were particularly targeted by Russian oligarchs and their London legal firms in recent years: Putin's People by Catherine Belton and Kleptopia by Tom Burgis (Eyes passim).

Their letter to MPs argues that these could not count as SLAPPs on the grounds that "the defendant in both cases was an equally wealthy Murdoch-owned publisher". So that's all right then!

More top stories in the latest issue:

VERE TO STAY
The Daily Mail is keen to criticise nepotism in the Labour party – but what of the second big promotion in four years at DMG Media for the chairman's son?

SPECTATOR SPURT
New Spectator editor Michael Gove offered an opportunity to a plucky young writer in his first issue – commissioning himself to write two articles.

EFUNE & GAMES
Dovid Efune is in prime position to take over the Telegraph papers – and his stewardship of his US titles may offer clues to his intentions.

HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE
A review of a C4 documentary slipped through the Guardian's safeguards regarding anything contentious on the subject of Israel and Gaza.

HARDING'S BARGAIN
Tortoise boss James Harding has finally addressed Observer staff about his intention to buy the paper, but staff won't be feeling reassured.

A STOPPED COLLOQUE
Top journalists have been hobnobbing with politicians and business figures at the secretive Franco-British Colloque.

USUAL DRILL
The Times recently hosted its annual Earth Summit on cutting fossil fuel emissions – but the paper's record under Tony Gallagher is far from green.