This article lists cases in English law where anonymised privacy injunctions have been obtained. As super-injunctions can also be considered a type of anonymised privacy injunction they have also been included below.
Case | Notes |
---|---|
ABC & Others v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [1] | Involves a businessman, alleged sexual misconduct in the workplace, and non-disclosure agreements. The businessman was named as Sir Philip Green by Lord Hain using Parliamentary Privilege. [2] |
AMM v HXW [3] | Also known as Clarkson v Hall after broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson voluntarily lifted the injunction. |
ASG v GSA [4] | Involves a well known person who had an adulterous relationship |
CBL v Person Unknown [4] | Beyond the fact that it exists no information is known about this injunction. [5] |
CDE & FGH v Mirror Group Newspapers and LMN [6] | A misuse of private information claim |
Christoper Hutcheson (previously known as KGM) v News Group Newspapers [4] | Concerned the private life of Christoper Hutcheson. |
ETK v News Group Newspapers Ltd | An entertainment actor's affair. |
Goldsmith v BCD | Hacking of Zac Goldsmith's e-mails. |
Gray v UVW | Urgent interim injunction granted restraining the defendant from publishing confidential information. [4] |
JIH v News Group Newspapers Ltd | Relates to a sportsman. [4] |
KJH v HGF [7] | Blackmail case. |
LOD v News Group Newspapers Ltd [4] | Nothing beyond the case name is known. Judgment was ordered on 19/09/2008. [4] |
MNB v News Group | Concerned the private life of banker Fred Goodwin. Breached by John Hemming MP using Parliamentary Privilege. |
MJN v News Group Newspapers Ltd | Alleged affair of a Premiership footballer. |
NEJ v Wood | Concerns an alleged relationship between Helen Wood and a well-known actor |
OPQ v BJM [8] | Blackmail case. [8] |
POI v Lina | Blackmail case |
PJS v News Group Newspapers | Involves two well known figures in entertainment. Injunction was to be lifted by the Court of Appeal after their identities were revealed abroad and in Scotland, but remained in force following appeal to the Supreme Court. [9] |
QWE v SDF, GHJ and RTY [10] | Blackmail regarding a sexual relationship [10] |
RJA v AJR [4] | Misuse of private information and harassment. [4] |
Secretary of State for the Home Department v AP (No. 2) | Threat of violence to man formerly subject to a control order. [4] |
STU v UVW and XYZ [11] | A case record exists on Bailii but no facts are included |
TSE and ELP v News Group Newspapers [4] | Involves a footballer [4] |
TUV v Persons Unknown [4] | Information stolen from electronic devices. [4] |
VAM v Persons Unknown [4] | Further information about this injunction is not known. [4] |
WER v REW [4] | Chris Hutcheson took out an injunction against a website wishing to prevent details of his private life being made public |
WXY v Henry Gewanter [4] | Breach of confidence and misuse of private information. [12] |
XJA v News Group Newspapers Ltd | Involves a "well known person". [4] |
YYZ v YVR [4] | Involves a well known person. [4] |
ZAM v CFW & TFW [13] | Interim injunction to prevent publication of very serious allegation including criminal conduct. [4] |
ZXC v BNM [4] | An England footballer has an injunction in place to prevent the misuse of private information about him. [14] |
Z v Persons Unknown [4] | Unreported case [4] |
Lifetime privacy injunctions prevent the publication of a new identity.
Case | Details |
---|---|
Carr v News Group Newspapers Ltd | Granted to Maxine Carr following the Soham murders |
Venables v News Group Newspapers | Granted to killers of James Bulger |
X (a woman formerly known as Mary Bell and Y v O'Brien) | Granted to child killer Mary Bell |
The following cases are super-injunctions where the existence of the injunction itself was also secret:
Case | Method of Revelation |
---|---|
RJW v Guardian News and Media Ltd (Trafigura) | Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, had tabled a parliamentary question revealing the existence of the injunction. [15] |
Ntuli v Donald | A super-injunction was granted but later dischargd. [6] |
DFT v TFD | A super-injunction was granted but later discontinued. [16] |
Terry v Persons Unknown | Application for a super-injunction was rejected. [17] |
CTB v News Group Newspapers | Revealed by John Hemming MP using Parliamentary privilege. [18] [19] |
Andrew Marr and anonymous | Unreported case. Issued in 2008, its existence was revealed by Andrew Marr in a 2011 interview. [20] |
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.
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Robert John Reed, Baron Reed of Allermuir, is a Scottish judge who has been President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom since January 2020. He was the principal judge in the Commercial Court in Scotland before being promoted to the Inner House of the Court of Session in 2008. He is an authority on human rights law in Scotland and elsewhere; he served as one of the UK's ad hoc judges at the European Court of Human Rights. He was also a Non-Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong.
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Sir Michael George Tugendhat, styled The Hon. Mr Justice Tugendhat, and referred to as Tugendhat J in legal writing, is a retired High Court judge in England and Wales. He was the High Court's senior media judge, taking over that role from Mr Justice Eady on 1 October 2010.
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.
CTB v News Group Newspapers is an English legal case between Manchester United player Ryan Giggs, given the pseudonym CTB, and defendants News Group Newspapers Limited and model Imogen Thomas.
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In English tort law, a super-injunction is a type of injunction that prevents publication of information that is in issue and also prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all. The term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump controversy that had resulted in Trafigura obtaining a controversial injunction. Due to their very nature media organisations are not able to report who has obtained a super-injunction without being in contempt of court.
WER v REW was an anonymised legal case in which Chris Hutcheson, represented by Hugh Tomlinson, QC, of Schillings, took out an injunction to prevent Popdog Ltd from publishing details regarding his private life, and was heard before Justice Sir Charles Grey in January 2009. Hutcheson – Gordon Ramsay's former business partner and father-in-law – gained an injunction but it was later partially lifted, and ultimately overturned in the Court of Appeal, with Hutcheson being publicly named by the judge.
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PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2016] UKSC 26 is a UK constitutional law case in which an anonymised privacy injunction was obtained by a claimant, identified in court documents as "PJS", to prohibit publication of the details of a sexual encounter between him and two other people. Media outside England and Wales identified PJS as David Furnish.
MNB v News Group Newspapers also known as Goodwin v News Group Newspapers is an English privacy law case in which then banker Fred Goodwin successfully applied for a temporary injunction to prevent The Sun from publishing details about his private life. The injunction was breached by John Hemming MP in the House of Commons where the case was inaccurately referred to as a super-injunction.
A springboard injunction is a specific type of court order issued under English and Welsh law, which is typically used to prevent a former employee from misusing their former employer's confidential information. It potentially has relevance in other jurisdictions.