‘London Calling’

it is not up to the plaintiff to prove that the statement in question is false, rather the defendant must prove that the statement is true (or that some other defence is available to them).40 This is in contrast to other jurisdictions, such as the United States and Germany, where far more of the burden of proof rests on the claimant, who must prove the allegedly libellous statement under claim is. [...] A defendant will have to meet the following three conditions to establish the defence of honest opinion: ○ The statement complained of must be an expression of opinion ○ The statement complained of must indicate the basis of the opinion ○ The opinion must be one that an honest person could have held on the basis of a fact which existed at the time the statement was published or a privileged statem. [...] The defendant must show that: the statement complained of, or formed part of a statement on a matter of public interest; and the defendant reasonably believed that publishing the statement complained of was in the public interest, Section 4 of the Act provides a non-exhaustive list of matters and circumstances the court should have regard to when determining whether the defendant acted responsibly. [...] The company continues to state that the broadcast was wrong and seriously misleading and always acts strictly according to the law in every jurisdiction in which it operates.” 92 When filing the case at the High Court in June 2019, Black Cube had argued that, despite the show having been broadcast in Israel, its standing in the UK was affected as the country where one of its founders and many of i. [...] The grant of permission was therefore parasitic on permission to serve the claims in libel.”116 The Court of Appeal judgment overturned Mr Justice Jay’s earlier dismissal of the GDPR claim, and denied the appeal by the defendants to have the libel claims thrown out and the cross-appeal by the claimant to have the malicious falsehood claim reinstated.