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- on November 21, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Actionable only if proof of wallet damage? What about the old rule to the contrary from the South Hetton Coal Compay case, upheld by the House of Lords in Jameel (2006)?
Farewell CSR, hello corporate libel action
November 20, 2008
Spada’s White Paper on trends in Environmental Reporting shows that FTSE 100 companies have largely jettisoned the term “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) in favour of simply “corporate responsibility” (CR). It is hypothesized that the change has occurred because “the term ’social’ has connotations of the ’soft’, ‘touchy-feely’, old-style practices of random philanthropy”, so too that it may evoke too fulsome a connection with HR. Nowadays, “CR people emphasise that their job is about businesses behaving responsibly in everything they do and should be fully integrated into the business – and they want to be taken seriously.”
Companies do indeed take themselves increasingly seriously. Fleet Street is awash with letters before action from libel lawyers acting for the big corporates as never before. The law remains the same – a company will have to prove damage to its wallet, not merely its reputation, to prevail in a libel claim – but the collapse in value among so many institutions has put a premium on accurate corporate reportage. These days, it’s that much easier to say that there’s a correlation between adverse publicity and a dwindling share price.
The dropping of the word “social” may therefore herald a move away from a softer corporate style – just as the rise of the corporate libel action may illumine the darker side of corporate responsibility: the need, in harsh market, to do utilise the defamation laws to protect shareholder value.
Image courtesy of Flickr.
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2 Responses to “Farewell CSR, hello corporate libel action”
- Posted by:
- on November 21, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Hi Nigel,
Blade was perhaps imprecise with his words… However, isn’t one point from South Hetton that a company can bring a claim sans proof of wallet damage, but that any damages awarded will be small?
By all means illuminate further and put Blade in his place!
When a lawyer’s son is before the law
September 8, 2010
A lawyer of Swordplay’s acquaintance finds himself in a fix.
“My teenage son is to be interviewed by the local constable,” he tells us. “He is alleged to have committed an offence.”
We gasp, for such seems the appropriate response, and then ask: is it serious?
“No, it is not,” our troubled legal friend tells us. “In the great scheme of things, my son’s alleged transgression is about as de minimis as they get.”
For a split second, we wonder if said teenage son is cognisant of lawyerly terms of art such as de minimis, but rapidly conclude that the answer to this question is not a sine qua non of further discourse. And so we press on. That sounds good, we say, relatively speaking, at least.
“Yes,” says the lawyer, “but I am at a loss as to what to do with him. Do I come down hard and ground him, or do I play the liberal card, or do I find a compromise?”
That depends, we aver.
“On what?” asks our man.
On whether you would prefer to deal with your son’s alleged offence as a lawyer, or as a father, or as a father who is a lawyer, or maybe even as a lawyer who is a father.
“I see your point,” says the lawyer. And then, as if to prove that there is no cure for recidivism, he says: “The offence is, after all, de minimis.”
Without prejudice, we add.
Pictured: something out of Kafka. Now there was a man who knew about the law. And had a tough old father, too.
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Max Mosley and Wayne Rooney: bedfellows?
September 6, 2010
We rarely enjoy pondering Max Mosley – the man, the sins, the legal action, what he stands for – but confess to a degree of grudging admiration for his tenacity in trying to change the law of privacy. As this story from the Independent has it, Mosley has lodged a request with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg asking that, by law, journalists must inform the subject of a story of the private details they intend to print, prior to publication.
We suspect the motor racing man would never have thought it, but he would appear to have an unlikely bedfellow in a certain England footballer. Step forward, Wayne Rooney, who would presumably put his name to Mosley’s petition.
Pictured courtesy of NashvilleScene: some bedfellows are stranger than fiction.
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Memo to Freelance Writers: return that editor’s call quickly
September 3, 2010
Woe betide those who freelance and fail to return a call.
We say this upon hearing of a normally prolific freelance journalist who picked up a voicemail from an editor at one of the nationals on Tuesday afternoon. Please call us, was the message, and it could mean just one thing – a commission.
Our hero’s habitual practice is to return such calls as soon as is reasonably practicable, as m’learned friends might put it. In practice, that would habitually mean within a couple of hours. Most atypically, and for reasons we have yet to fathom, our man failed to call back for a full 24 hours.
By then, said editor had looked elsewhere. One of our man’s competitors had the gig, an interesting piece about cricket and the law, one which might just be in The Times today and which, we assume, asks whether the Pakistan cricket team have been caught out (in the legal sense, you understand).
We make no judgement on the no ball scandal, save to say that it is a scandal, but in another sense the moral is clear: in the fast-paced world of modern media, he who hesitates is lost.
Pictured courtesy of PrintedClothing.com: a fast-selling shirt.
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