Brexit-backer Arron Banks wins appeal in Carole Cadwalladr libel case
Brexit-backer Arron Banks has won an appeal in his libel lawsuit against investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr.
The UK’s Court of Appeal today said Cadwalladr should pay libel damages to Banks over claims she made in a 2019 Ted Talk concerning the Brexit campaigner’s purported links to Russia.
Today’s decision saw the Court of Appeal overturn an earlier High Court decision to dismiss Banks’ lawsuit.
The High Court previously ruled in June last year that while Cadwalladr’s comments had damaged Banks’ reputation, the Brexit supporter should not be entitled to compensation.
The High Court instead ruled in Cadwalladr’s favour, in upholding the journalist’s ‘public interest’ defence.
The High Court said Cadwalladr should be protected from Banks’ libel lawsuit due to the public interest of her work.
Banks first sued Cadwalladr for libel in 2019 over claims she made in a Ted Talk and on Twitter about the Leave.EU founder’s alleged links to the Kremlin.
Cadwalladr claimed in her 2019 Ted Talk that Banks had “lied” about his “relationship with the Russian government”.
The journalist later doubled down on her allegations on Twitter, after Banks threatened to sue her over the Ted Talk.
“I say he lied about his contact with the Russian government because he did,” Cadwalladr said.
Banks subsequently appealed the High Court’s decision to dismiss his libel lawsuit, as he claimed Cadwalladr had failed to prevent further publication of either the Ted Talk or her tweet.
The Court of Appeals has now overturned the High Court’s previous ruling, in backing Banks case, as it instead dismissed Cadwalladr’s public interest defence.
“The appeal court found I had been defamed, suffered serious harm and they award unspecified damages. You can’t really ask for more vindication than that,” Banks said on Twitter after the judgement was handed down.
Cadwalladr, however, did not view the ruling as a loss.
“Every dog has its day. But this is a technical judgment that concerns just 100k views of the TED talk after April 2020, not the 4.3million who saw it before,” Cadwalladr said on Twitter.
“To be absolutely clear: this is a minor skirmish. I won the case. The judge’s ruling, on everything else, holds,” she said.