Who’s slapping whom? Strategic lawsuits against public participation, a growing threat to freedom of speech or dividends for hard-nosed law firms representing unpopular clients?
Smartt, Ursula (2023) Who’s slapping whom? Strategic lawsuits against public participation, a growing threat to freedom of speech or dividends for hard-nosed law firms representing unpopular clients? In: Keynote speech, 14 November 2023, Leeds Beckett University Law School. (Submitted)
Abstract
Strategic lawsuits against public participation – or Slapps are abusive lawsuits pursued with the purpose of shutting down acts of public participation. These legal actions are usually directed against individual journalists, whistleblowers, activists and academics who speak out on matters of public interest. Claimants filing Slapp-lawsuits are usually international Russian billionaires and oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich, who sued journalist Catherine Belon over her best-selling book, Putin’s People in 2021. Belton had alleged that he had bought Chelsea Football Club on Vladimir Putin’s orders. Abramovich was one of three Russian tycoons who initiated libel proceedings against Belton and publishers HarperCollins, together with the Russian state oil company Rosneft. The talk includes how law firms often send overly aggressive, intimidating or threatening correspondence to individuals and businesses, threatening with an intended course of action, with labels such as 'strictly private and confidential', 'not for publication' or 'without prejudice'. It will be explained that such exaggerated claims and threatening letters are not legally valid. A cross-party coalition of MPs has called for the change in the law since November 2022 to prevent the use of court processes to silence investigative journalists and whistleblowers in Slapps actions, led by Conservative MP David Davis. In January 2023, the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications and Digital called for the creation of a new Slapps defence fund paid for by wrongdoers. They also called for more action from the solicitor’s regulator (SRA) and multi-million pound increases in fining powers to deter abusive lawsuits, and greater oversight of law firms using ‘black PR’ and private intelligence agencies to harass journalists. Following the King’s Speech on 7 November 2023, the UK Parliament introduced a couple of clauses into the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, namely section 194 ‘strategic litigation against public participation’ with a requirement to make rules of court in relation to Slapps, and section 195 with a court’s power to strike out Slapps claims, however only associated with economic crime. The Media Bill announced by King Charles III made no mention of Slapps.
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