MNB v News Group Newspapers

Last updated

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. [1] The injunction was breached by John Hemming MP in the House of Commons where the case was inaccurately referred to as a super-injunction.

Contents

Breach of injunction

On 10 March 2011, John Hemming, a backbench Liberal Democrat MP, referred in Parliament (under parliamentary privilege) to the supposed existence of "a superinjunction preventing [Goodwin] from being identified as a banker". [2] As matters discussed in Parliament can be freely reported by the press, newspapers including The Guardian , [3] The Independent , [4] and The Daily Telegraph , [5] reported that Goodwin had obtained such an injunction, while still remaining unable to explain what information the injunction restricted the publication of. [5]

On 19 May 2011, Lord Stoneham, speaking in the House of Lords, asked the Government "how can it be right for a super-injunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir [sic] Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague?" [6] Later that day, the High Court varied the order, allowing Goodwin's name to be published, but continued it in relation to the identity of the lady involved. [7] In his judgment, Mr Justice Tugendhat noted that the order had not been a superinjunction as it had been published in anonymised form on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website. He also stated that the injunction had not prevented Goodwin being identified as a banker, but instead prevented the person applying for the injunction from being identified as a banker, and that this was done because "if the applicant were identified as a banker that would be likely to lead to his being named, which would defeat the purpose of granting him anonymity". The judge criticised press reporting of the case as including "misleading and inaccurate statements". [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

Injunction a legal order to stop doing something

An injunction is a legal and 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. Counterinjunctions are injunctions that stop or reverse the enforcement of another injunction.

Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties. It is common in countries whose constitutions are based on the Westminster system.

Frederick Anderson Goodwin, FRSE, FCIBS is a Scottish chartered accountant and former banker who was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) between 2001 and 2009.

John Hemming (politician) British politician (born 1960)

John Alexander Melvin Hemming is a British Liberal Democrat politician and businessman. He served as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley from 2005 until 2015.

Sir David Eady is a retired High Court judge in England and Wales. As a judge, he is known for having presided over many high-profile libel and privacy cases.

A parliamentary by-election occurs in the United Kingdom following a vacancy arising in the House of Commons. They are often seen as a test of the rival political parties' fortunes between general elections.

Sir Michael George Tugendhat, styled The Hon. Mr Justice Tugendhat, and called in legal reports Tugendhat J, is a High Court judge in England and Wales. He is the High Court's senior media judge, taking over that role from Mr Justice Eady on 1 October 2010. His appointment was welcomed by some journalists who believed he held "more enlightened beliefs" than his predecessor.

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.

Ben Stoneham, Baron Stoneham of Droxford

Benjamin Russell Mackintosh Stoneham, Baron Stoneham of Droxford is a British peer, journalist, and Liberal Democrat politician. He is currently the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip in the House of Lords, having been elected to that position in October 2016.

<i>CTB v News Group Newspapers Ltd</i>

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.

Hugh Richard Edward Tomlinson QC is an English barrister, a prominent English translator of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze and a founding member of Matrix Chambers. He is a noted specialist in media and information law including defamation, confidence, privacy and data protection. He played a central role in the litigation that sought the full disclosure of UK MP's parliamentary expenses and in the News of the World phone-hacking case. He is known for his privacy work for celebrities who have included Lily Allen, David and Victoria Beckham, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Ryan Giggs, as well as others such as retired banker Fred Goodwin and Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales. He is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

<i>NEJ v Wood</i>

NEJ v BDZ ([2011] EWHC 1972 is a 2011 High Court case involving issues of privacy in English law.

Hyper-injunctions in English law refer to a form of superinjunction that prevents discussion of a topic covered by a superinjunction with Members of Parliament, lawyers or journalists except for the person's own defence lawyers. The term was coined by the Liberal Democrat John Hemming MP.

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 Trafigura controversy. Due to their very nature media organisations are not able to report who has obtained a super-injunction without being in contempt of court. The term super-injunction has sometimes been used imprecisely in the media to refer to any anonymised privacy injunction preventing publication of private information. Critics of super-injunctions have argued that they stifle free speech, that they are ineffective as they can be breached using the Internet and social media and that the taking out of an injunction can have the unintended consequence of publicising the information more widely, a phenomenon known as the Streisand effect.

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.

<i>PJS v News Group Newspapers Ltd</i>

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", in order 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.

In English law an anonymised injunction is, according to the Neuberger Committee, "an interim injunction which restrains a person from publishing information which concerns the applicant and is said to be confidential or private where the names of either or both of the parties to the proceedings are not stated". An anonymised injunction is distinct from a "superinjunction" which also prevents publication that the injunction has been obtained. When reported, anonymised injunctions have case names which hide the identity of one or more parties, for example PJS v News Group Newspapers.

Fred Goodwin v News Group Newspapers and VBN is a 2011 privacy case involving Fred Goodwin.

JIH v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2011] EWCA Civ 42 is a 2011 privacy case in the United Kingdom. The case relates to a story that The Sun newspaper wished to publish relating to an alleged affair between the claimant JIH and another person. An anonymity order was granted. The Guardian newspaper state that the individual who sought the injunction in this case is a sportsman.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.onebrickcourt.com/cases.aspx?menu=main&pageid=42&caseid=370
  2. ↑ Hansard , HC 6ser vol 524 col 1069.
  3. ↑ Hirsch, Afua (10 March 2011). "Fred Goodwin gets superinjunction to stop him being called a banker". The Guardian. London.
  4. ↑ Taylor, Jerome (10 March 2011). "MP lifts veil on Fred Goodwin super-injunction". The Independent. London.
  5. 1 2 Swinford, Steven (10 March 2011). "Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS chief, obtains super-injunction". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 3 May 2011.
  6. ↑ Hansard , HL 5ser vol 727 col 1490.
  7. ↑ "High Court lifts Sir Fred Goodwin anonymity injunctio". BBC. 19 May 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
  8. ↑ "Goodwin v News Group Newspapers Ltd". British and Irish Legal Information Institute. 19 May 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.