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The Supreme Court in MGN Limited v Gulati and others on 22 March 2016 upheld the High Court decision of Mr Justice Mann in respect of assessing damages payable to claimants who had been victim of invasion of privacy, including telephone hacking by some staff of the Daily Mirror newspaper, owned by Mirror Group Newspapers Limited (MGN) (see IRIS 2015-7/18). MGN had appealed to the Court of Appeal, contending that the damages awarded by Mr Justice Mann were excessive. The Court of Appeal’s judgment, dated 17 December 2015, dismissed MGN’s appeal on all grounds (see IRIS 2016-3/17). The Court of Appeal...

On 13 April 2016, Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, issued a Statement concerning e-cigarettes. It specifies amendments which Ofcom is making to the Broadcast Code and also the amendments which it has instructed the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice to make to the BCAP Code: the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising. BCAP had introduced rules on the marketing of e-cigarettes in 2014 (see IRIS 2015-1/23). The changes were ordered by the UK Secretary for Health under section 321(6) of the Communications Act 2003. The amendments arise from the UK’s implementation of the EU Tobacco Products...

The report of the review by Dame Janet Smith into the BBC’s culture and practices during the Jimmy Saville and Stuart Hall years has now been published. Saville was a highly popular television presenter; it was revealed after his death that he had carried out a large number of acts of sexual abuse, especially against young girls, and many of these had been committed in relation to his work at the BBC. Hall was another popular TV presenter; he was imprisoned after admitting 14 charges of abuse against young girls aged between 9 and 17 years over a period of three decades, once more in connection...

The case arose from the “Plebgate” affair in September 2012, in which it was reported that the then Government Chief Whip had verbally abused a police officer when prevented from leaving Downing Street on his bicycle through the main gate. Official police logs were leaked, and the Sun newspaper received anonymous phone calls about the event on its tip hotline. This fact lead to a concern that, in addition to the leaking of information, there was a conspiracy to bring down a member of the Government and the perversion of the course of justice by certain officers. The Chief Whip resigned from the...

In an action in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice presided over by Mr Justice Arnold, it was determined in a judgment given on 18 March 2016 that the reproduction and communication to the public of clips of TV broadcasts of England cricket matches and films via a sports clip sharing app was not protected by the defence of fair dealing for the purpose of reporting current events. In this case, the claimants, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) owned the copyright to the TV broadcasts of England cricket matches. The defendants, Tixdaq, owned a website (www.fanatix.com) and...