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Headquarters | The Bureau, 90 Fetter Lane London, EC4A United Kingdom |
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Major practice areas | Libel, privacy, international law and commercial disputes |
Key people |
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Date founded | 1982 |
Founder | Peter Carter-Ruck |
Website | www.carter-ruck.com |
Carter-Ruck is a British law firm founded by Peter Carter-Ruck. [1] The firm specialises in libel, privacy, international law and commercial disputes. [2] The leading legal directories (Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners) rank Carter-Ruck in the top tier of media, defamation and privacy lawyers in the UK. [3] [4]
Carter-Ruck has been criticised for using intimidating and threatening tactics against journalists, government officials, and citizens to support the interests of their clients. [5] [6] [7] In 2022, a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee recommended that six Carter-Ruck lawyers be banned from entering the United States because of their ongoing work on behalf of Russian oligarchs. [8]
The firm was founded by Peter Carter-Ruck in 1982 after his former partners in Oswald Hickson told him to retire. [9]
Recent or current clients include the State of Qatar, Cubby Broccoli, Tesco, Rached Ghannouchi, Sir Elton John, Simon Cowell, Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens), Liam Gallagher, Jude Law, Prince Radu of Romania, Frank Bruno and Chelsea Football Club. The firm represents numerous MPs (including government ministers), MEPs and other political figures including a number of national governments and heads of state. [10]
Carter-Ruck acted for the Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky in a number of libel and other actions, including in the House of Lords against Forbes magazine, [11] The Guardian [12] and Russian broadcaster VGTRK. [13]
Carter-Ruck was involved in legal action against Financial Times journalist Catherine Belton and her publisher HarperCollins over her book Putin's People . [14]
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Carter-Ruck said it condemned the invasion and that the firm would not represent individuals associated with the Vladimir Putin regime. [14]
The firm has been involved in several libel cases related to the missing child Madeleine McCann. Complaints were brought on behalf of the child's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, against the Daily Express , the Daily Star and their sister Sunday newspapers over stories that suggested that the parents might have been involved in Madeleine's disappearance. The complaints led to the publication of unprecedented front-page apologies to Kate and Gerry McCann, in addition to a payment of £550,000 in damages, which was donated to the fund to find Madeleine. [15] [16]
Carter-Ruck also advised the so-called 'Tapas Seven', [17] the friends who were dining with the child's parents when she went missing. The complaints again led to the publication of an apology and a payment of £375,000 in damages, donated to the fundraising group Madeleine's Fund. [18]
In late 2008, John Duignan, a former Scientologist, published The Complex: An Insider Exposes the Covert World of the Church of Scientology , a book critical of Scientology. Carter-Ruck, citing defamation laws, stopped Amazon from publishing the book in Britain. [19]
In 2010, Carter-Ruck represented the Church of Scientology regarding 28 September 2010 broadcast on "Secrets of Scientology" aired by BBC's Panorama , claiming the journalist involved was biased. [20]
In 2016, Carter-Ruck were again found to be representing Scientology in the UK when they sent several letters to Louis Theroux and his producers during the making of My Scientology Movie threatening, amongst other things, legal action and an injunction against its release.[ citation needed ] The film was released in 2015.
Carter-Ruck was instructed by commodities trader Trafigura over press coverage relating to the discharge of oil 'slops' from a Trafigura-chartered tanker in Ivory Coast in 2006. Libel proceedings were brought against the BBC in 2009 after a broadcast of the current affairs programme Newsnight suggested that Trafigura's actions had caused a number of deaths, miscarriages and serious injuries. The BBC went on to broadcast an apology as the opening item on Newsnight. [21] The BBC also apologised in a Statement in Open Court. [22]
Corrections concerning Trafigura were also published by The Times, [23] [24] The Independent, [25] and The Guardian. [26]
In September 2009, The Guardian reported that Carter-Ruck demanded it delete published articles relating to the Trafigura toxic oil disaster, saying it was "gravely defamatory" and "untrue" to say that Trafigura's waste had been dumped cheaply and could have caused deaths and serious injuries. The Guardian later reported that Trafigura agreed to pay compensation to 31,000 West African victims. The Guardian also alleged that other media outlets in the Netherlands and Norway were also threatened with gagging orders. [27] These turned out to be NRK in Norway, and De Volkskrant and Greenpeace in the Netherlands.
In October 2009, The Guardian published an article stating that it had been prevented from reporting on a parliamentary matter, being "forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret. The only fact The Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck." The paper further claimed that this case appears "to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights". [28]
The question subject to the gagging order was from Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura. [29]
The following day the firm agreed to discharge the order preventing the reporting of the events, which concerned Trafigura and a draft chemistry report into the oil slops incident in Ivory Coast. [30] [31] Trafigura maintained that the report was a superseded draft report which was legally privileged and confidential, and that it had been obtained illegally and passed to The Guardian. [32] [ full citation needed ]
According to a press release on Carter-Ruck's website, the reason that The Guardian could not report the question asked by Paul Farrelly was because a gagging order had been in place since 11 September 2009, before the MP asked the question. They also stated that it had never been their intention to prevent the press reporting on parliament and that they had since agreed on changes with The Guardian to the gagging order so that they could report on the issue. [33] The firm also pointed out that The Guardian had in fact consented to the order preventing the newspaper from publishing any article about the chemistry report.
Subsequently, lawyers advising the Speaker of the House of Commons are reported to have agreed with Carter-Ruck's interpretation that the injunction as initially granted did prevent the press from reporting the Parliamentary question. [34]
The Conservative MP Peter Bottomley reported the firm to the Law Society due to their actions which prevented The Guardian covering parliamentary proceedings, [35] but the Law Society did not uphold any complaint.
In 2014, Carter-Ruck unsuccessfully sued cyber security company Spamhaus on behalf of California-based entrepreneurs Craig Ames and Rob McGee, who were involved with a bulk email marketing services business, initially through a US corporation called Blackstar Media LLC, and latterly as employees of Blackstar Marketing, a subsidiary of the English company Adconion Media Group Limited, which bought Blackstar Media in April 2011. Although an initial motion by Spamhaus to strike out the claims failed, [36] they ultimately prevailed when the claimants dropped their case and paid Spamhaus' legal costs. [37]
In September 2016 Carter-Ruck threatened legal action against Andrew Penman's exposé of the purported cryptocurrency OneCoin. In May 2017, police and financial actions in several countries revealed that Carter-Ruck's client did indeed appear to be operating a Ponzi scheme. [38] [39] [40]
In July 2019, it was revealed that Carter-Ruck had written to Sam Matthews, the Labour Party's former head of disputes, warning he could face legal action for breaking his non-disclosure agreement for blowing the whistle on the party's handling of antisemitism allegations. [41] [42]
Sir Christopher Meyer, former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) said that the PCC was the firm's "sworn enemy" and accused the firm of using a Commons select committee hearing to attack the PCC. He suggested that Carter-Ruck and other media law firms probably saw the PCC as their enemy because "we can do the job for free and can provide a degree of discretion". Cameron Doley, then managing partner with Carter-Ruck, denied the accusations made against them. [43]
The firm is frequently referred to as 'Carter-Fuck' by the satirical magazine Private Eye . Despite their antagonistic relationship, Carter-Ruck publicly sided with Private Eye when the magazine lost a £600,000 libel case in 1989 against Sonia Sutcliffe, the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper. Founder Peter Carter-Ruck was subsequently invited to attend a Private Eye lunch, and soon afterwards he asked whether the magazine could stop misprinting the first letter of 'Ruck' as an 'F'. Private Eye's response was to print the first letter of 'Carter' with an 'F' as well. [44]
The Libel Reform Campaign cite many instances where the application of the libel laws by law firms like Carter-Ruck is effectively gagging the freedom of expression and free speech in England and Wales, leaving only the wealthy anywhere in the world able to seek justice in the UK where it would be denied in their own country [45] [ vague ] (see Libel tourism). However, these criticisms have been challenged by leading media law academics Alastair Mullis and Andrew Scott. [46]
An example of Carter-Ruck acting on behalf of a client to stifle criticism was reported in The Guardian newspaper on 19 January 2011. Carter-Ruck on behalf of Midland Pig Producers (MPP) issued a warning letter to the Soil Association (SA) threatening libel proceedings after the SA objected to a MPP planning application. [47] Threatening such proceedings, which are rarely followed through, is a typical modus operandi of Carter-Ruck (and other law firms) to minimise scrutiny of, and adverse publicity toward, their clients – a practice known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, abbreviated SLAPP.[ original research? ]
Other firms involved in the same field as Carter-Ruck include Olswang and Reynolds Porter Chamberlain. [48]
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. "When a court employs the extraordinary remedy of injunction, it directs the conduct of a party, and does so with the backing of its full coercive powers." A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties, including possible monetary sanctions and even imprisonment. They can also be charged with contempt of court.
The Church of Scientology has been involved in numerous court disputes across the world. In some cases, when the Church has initiated the dispute, questions have been raised as to its motives. The Church of Scientology says that its use of the legal system is necessary to protect its intellectual property and its right to freedom of religion. Critics say that most of the organization's legal claims are designed to harass those who criticize it and its manipulative business practices.
Peter Frederick Carter-Ruck was an English solicitor, specialising in libel cases. The firm he founded, Carter-Ruck, is still practising.
Olswang was an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom and with additional offices in Reading, Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Singapore and, since 2011, Munich. It worked closely with a network of firms across eighty countries. The Lawyer ranked the firm 22nd largest in the UK by worldwide turnover in 2010. That year, the firm had over 600 staff, including 97 partners. David Stewart was the firm's chief executive. On 1 May 2017, Olswang merged with CMS Cameron McKenna and Nabarro to form CMS Nabarro Olswang LLP.
Timothy Bowles is an American attorney who served as general legal counsel for the Church of Scientology International for eight years. In addition to his legal practice, he also serves as the executive director of Youth for Human Rights International, is a Commissioner on the Board of Advisors of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and has helped establish other social organizations sponsored by the Church of Scientology, including Narconon and Applied Scholastics.
CMS is an international law firm that offers legal and tax advisory services. It provides companies and organisations with advice on a full range of legal issues. CMS consists of 18 independent law firms with about 80 offices worldwide and is the world's 5th largest law firm by lawyer headcount and the 21st by revenue.
The 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump was a health crisis in Ivory Coast in which a ship registered in Panama, the Probo Koala, chartered by the Singaporean-based oil and commodity shipping company Trafigura Beheer BV, offloaded toxic waste to an Ivorian waste handling company which disposed of it at the port of Abidjan. The local contractor, a company called Tommy, dumped the waste at 12 sites in and around the city in August 2006. The dumping, which took place against a backdrop of instability in Abidjan as a result of the country's first civil war, allegedly led to the death of 7 and 20 hospitalisations, with a further 26,000 people treated for symptoms of poisoning.
Schillings is an international reputation and privacy consultancy staffed by reputation, privacy and family lawyers, risk consulting, cyber security and intelligence specialists. The company is an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) and is regulated and authorized by the United Kingdom's Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). It employs 33 lawyers, risk managers, and IT security consultants and offers services covering risk consulting, legal services, and IT security.
Bell Pottinger Private was a British multinational public relations, reputation management and marketing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. On 12 September 2017 it went into administration (bankruptcy) as a consequence of a scandal caused by its activities in South Africa.
Mishcon de Reya LLP is a British international law firm with offices in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Singapore, as well as an association with Karas So LLP in Hong Kong. Founded in 1937, it employs more than 1450 people with over 650 lawyers. It is regarded by some as forming part of the "Silver Circle" of leading UK law firms.
The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. The effect is named for American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attorney's attempt in 2003 to suppress the publication of a photograph showing her clifftop residence in Malibu, taken to document coastal erosion in California, inadvertently drew far greater attention to the previously obscure photograph. The effect exemplifies psychological reactance: where the desire to hide information instead makes its propagation more likely.
Scientology in the United Kingdom is practised mainly within the Church of Scientology and its related groups which go under names including "Hubbard Academy of Personal Independence" and "Dianetics and Scientology Life Improvement Centre". The national headquarters, and former global headquarters, is Saint Hill Manor at East Grinstead, which for seven years was the home of L. Ron Hubbard, the pulp fiction author who created Scientology. In the 2021 census, there were 1,844 individuals in England and Wales who listed themselves as Scientologists in their census returns, almost half of which lived in the area around East Grinstead in West Sussex, which hosts the British Scientology Headquarters at Saint Hill Manor. This is a decline of just under a quarter since census day, 2011.
Private Eye is a British fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely recognised for its prominent criticism and lampooning of public figures. It is also known for its in-depth investigative journalism into under-reported scandals and cover-ups.
Mark Howard Stephens is an English solicitor specializing in media law, intellectual property rights, freedom of speech and human rights. He is known for representing James Hewitt when allegations of his affair with Diana, Princess of Wales first emerged. In 2010, he represented Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, defending him against an extradition request to Sweden based on suspicion of numerous sexual offences. He also founded the law firm Howard Kennedy LLP, which has represented several high-profile clients in media and entertainment law cases.
Meirion Jones is a Welsh journalist. He worked for the BBC from 1988 until 2015 and is now the editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman described Jones as "a dogged journalist with that obsessional, slightly nutty commitment that marks out all successful investigative reporters".
The British privacy injunctions controversy began in early 2011, when London-based tabloid newspapers published stories about anonymous celebrities that were intended to flout what are commonly known in English law as super-injunctions, where the claimant could not be named, and carefully omitting details that could not legally be published. In April and May 2011, users of non-UK hosted websites, including the social media website Twitter, began posting material connecting various British celebrities with injunctions relating to a variety of potentially scandalous activities. Details of the alleged activities by those who had taken out the gagging orders were also published in the foreign press, as well as in Scotland, where the injunctions had no legal force.
Parliamentary privilege in the United Kingdom is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of the House of Commons and House of Lords designed to ensure that parliamentarians are able to carry out their duties free from interference. The privileges are freedom of speech, freedom from arrest on civil matters, freedom of access to the sovereign, and that 'the most favourable construction should be placed on all the Houses' proceedings'. Fair and accurate reporting of the proceedings of parliament is also protected by parliamentary privilege.
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Sasha Wass KC is a British judge, prosecutor and defender.
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(help)In 1989 Carter-Ruck publicly attacked the £600,000 damages awarded to Sonia Sutcliffe against the magazine and was invited to an Eye lunch, an occasion he attended with some trepidation. Not long afterwards, he asked if, in the new spirit of friendship, they would now stop printing the first letter of Ruck as an F. Their response, not unpredictably, was to print the first letter of Carter as an F as well. 'I think my relationship with Private Eve [sic] is now definitely hate,' he said later.