Banker Banks $95k in Libel Judgment Against U.K. Paper

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Associated Newspapers Ltd., U.K. publisher of the Mail on Sunday, apologized in London's High Court last week for allegedly accusing a prominent financial figure of perjuring himself and participating in a purported conspiracy to defraud banks, Bloomberg News reported.

Irfan Qadir, a well-known figure in the U.K. banking community, reportedly pocketed 60,000 pounds ($95,000) from Associated Newspapers in a settlement. The High Court last October said the Mail on Sunday unfairly published a story accusing Qadir, a former Bank of Scotland director, of playing a key role in an alleged conspiracy to defraud banks out of 49 million pounds without including a judge's comments in the article noting the allegation was unsupported by evidence, according to Bloomberg News.

Dancer's Libel Suit Against Daily Mail a Misstep, Court Rules

Image via WikipediaFrom across the Pond comes a story from The Guardian concerning Strictly Come Dancing hoofer and lawyer Nancy Dell'Olio, 50, (the apostrophe is silent), who unsuccessfully sued Daily Mail parent Associated Newspapers, Ltd. for libel, claiming she was defamed in an article about her romantic involvement with thrice-married, 71-year-old theater director Sir Trevor Nunn.

Dell'Olio sued over an April 2011, Daily Mail article headlined "Return of the man-eater," claiming the article ignored the couple's mutual love of theater and each other by portraying her in a defamatory way as a "serial gold-digger." Associated Newspapers acknowledged the article was not a paean to Dell'Olio, but argued it fairly depicted the couple's mutual admiration, noted Nunn made the initial overtures to the plaintiff, and denied the piece defamed Dell'Olio.

Mr. Justice (Michael) Tugendhat of the High Court (not a Dr. Seuss creation) agreed with the daily, writing that although "man-eater" has a predatory connotation, it doesn't rise to the more actionable level of "serial gold-digger," which must be a great relief to grizzly bears and Great White sharks everywhere.  Not likely the plaintiff would have fared any better in the States, where the "fair comment" defense probably would have found the offending statements non-defamatory opinion.

Final tally--Daily Mail: 1, Dell'Olio: Nunn.

Facebook Face-Off With U.K. Daily Over Pedophile Ring Story

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The Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk), the England-based daily owned by Associated Newspapers, Ltd., is in a dust-up with Facebook, which the social network giant threatens may end up in court or before the Press Complaints Commission, according to a story in today's Daily Mail.

Already, at Facebook's urging, the Daily Mail pulled the following headline from its online edition last Friday: "How many more victims of Facebook sex gang?" The headline accompanied a story about an ongoing police probe of a pedophile ring operating in Devon that so far has resulted in the arrest of a 19-year-old man on two sex offense charges. The article detailed warnings issued by authorities to parents of 16,000 students in Torbay about a gang of child abusers who have preyed on as many as 20 victims to date.

Facebook objected to the headline on the grounds that no evidence has yet surfaced that the social network site was in any way involved in facilitating the sexual exploitation of the alleged victims.  Although the Daily Mail changed the headline at issue, it has yet to accede to Facebook's demand for a written apology, instead issuing a statement standing by its story.

The Daily Mail and Facebook also were involved in a tussle last March that resulted in the paper's apology to Facebook, which wrongly was identified in a story as the social networking site on which a man posed as a teen-aged girl and was propositioned by several older men to perform a sex act.

It remains to be seen whether the newspaper will be sued or just "de-friended."