High Court Awards Businessman £105,000 for Defamatory Article

A businessman has been awarded damages by the High Court after a website published a defamatory article about him.

The businessman had developed projects in a number of countries, including Uzbekistan. Due to his professional reputation and his success in delivering projects in Uzbekistan, the country's government had officially approved and supported a number of his projects there. The article, which was published in October 2024, contained a number of allegations against him, describing him as a 'shady character' who was 'notorious for his involvement in international corruption schemes'. He brought proceedings, claiming that the article was defamatory.

The Court accepted that the article was inherently likely to cause harm to the businessman's personal and professional reputation. It accused him of organised, serious and sustained criminality and corruption, involving the embezzlement of state funds and the corrupt seizure of control of assets for his own financial gain. Noting that the website's Facebook page had 18,000 followers and the website itself had a similarly high number of regular readers, the Court found that the article had been published to a substantial number of people in the UK. Prior to the publication of the article, there had been very few articles published online about the businessman in English.

The article had been published as part of a disinformation campaign carried out against the businessman, his family members and his business associates, which had caused him very significant damage. The website had falsely claimed to be regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

Having regard to all the features of the case, the Court assessed general and aggravated damages in the sum of £105,000. The Court remarked that that remedy would leave no doubt in the mind of a reasonable onlooker as to the businessman's entitlement to vindication. An injunction was also made ordering the operators of the website to cease publishing the article and prohibiting them from publishing the defamatory statements or similar words to the same effect. In the Court's view, there were good grounds for believing that they would repeat the libel unless restrained by the Court. They were also ordered to publish the Court's judgment and to pay the businessman's costs.