The Supreme Court has rejected a request to defame Brexit-backing businessman Aaron Banks against journalist Carol Cadualad.
He ruled Monday that defending the public interest of a freelance reporter has been successful.
The allegation of defamation focused on comments made in TED Talk by Ms Cadwalladr and a subsequent tweet in which she claimed that Banks – who founded the Leave.EU campaign – was lying about his relationship with Russia.
The Supreme Court found that Mr Banks was complaining about Ms Cadwalladr, who claimed that he had been dishonest about secret deals with the Russian state in connection with “accepting foreign funding for election campaigns in violation of the law on such funding”. .
Mr Banks claimed that the statements made by Cadwalladr were “false and defamatory” and sought compensation and an injunction to limit the continued publication of the remarks, which were still available for viewing online.
Judge Stein on Monday rejected the request on the grounds that the journalist had a “reasonable belief” that her comments were in the public interest.
Following the ruling, Mr Banks tweeted: “I won the only thing that mattered to Brexit!”
He also said: “Congratulations to Carol on her victory today, this leaves open for the journalist the excuse that she thinks what she said is right, even though there are no facts.
The main donor for Brexit added that he would “probably” appeal.
Aaron Banks founded the Leave.EU campaign
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Ms Cadwalladr, meanwhile, who has investigated the financing of the referendum campaigns and the alleged misuse of data on them, said she was “so deeply grateful and relieved” by the decision.
“I thank the judge, my stellar legal team and the 29,000 people who contributed to my legal protection fund. “I literally couldn’t do it without you,” she tweeted.
She added: “Fighting this was a devastating, exhausting, all-consuming experience that I sincerely hope no other journalist should go through.
In her ruling, Ms Justice Steyn said: “Based on her investigation, Ms Cadwalladr had reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Banks was offered” expensive “deals by the Russian government in the run-up to the EU referendum, despite that she saw no evidence that he had entered into such transactions; and Mr Banks’ financial affairs and the source of his ability to make the greatest political donations in the history of the United Kingdom were opaque.
The judge said that Ms Cadwalladr had not gone to Mr Banks for an answer before the interview, but had previously given him the right to reply to articles she had written on essentially the same subject.
The judge said Ms Cadwalldr had reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Banks had been offered “sweet” deals by the Russian government.
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She added: “Although Ms Cadwalladr has made it clear that she does not understand offshore structures, she has essentially concluded that his finances are non-transparent and it is not clear where he has withdrawn enough funds to donate as much as there was for the Brexit Campaign.
“These limited conclusions, which she drew from the wide range of articles she read and the financial journalists and experts she spoke to on the subject, were reasonable.
“In any case, I find that the accused has found that her belief that the publication of TED Talk is in the public interest is reasonable.
The judge found that the tweet Mr Banks complained about had not caused “serious damage” to his reputation, but ruled that if he had done so, she would have concluded that Ms Cadwalladr’s belief that the tweet is in the public interest, it is also reasonable.
Another judge had previously ruled that Ms Cadwalladr’s statements were meaningful: for such funding. “
Following that decision in 2019, Ms Cadwalladr accepted that her conclusion had been found by the judge to be incorrect, but continued to defend the case on grounds of public interest.
The Society of Editors, a group fighting for media freedom, welcomed Monday’s decision to reject Mr Banks’ defamation request.
Dawn Alford, its chief executive, called it an “extremely important victory” for both Ms Cadwalladr and “freedom of the press more widely”.
But she added: “While today’s verdict is welcome, the lawsuit against Cadwalladr, an award-winning investigative reporter, highlights the current challenges and threats facing journalists in creating public interest journalism that seeks to hold the rich accountable. and the strong ”
Additional reports from the Press Association
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