30 Mar 2015
Leave to appeal was granted because the appeal raises a question of sufficient legal importance concerning the standard of knowledge required to exclude a secondary publisher from the innocent dissemination defence under defamation law.
7 Oct 2014
The application for leave to appeal was refused because Question 1 was not reasonably arguable (relying on a minority authority) and Questions 2 and 3 raised attribution issues that were fact specific and not of great general or public importance; accordingly leave was denied and costs awarded to the plaintiff.
25 Apr 2014
Appeal dismissed. Court held defendant cannot invoke innocent dissemination because it failed to exercise reasonable care given its opportunity and connection with the publisher; the innocent dissemination defence requires lack of knowledge not attributable to negligence; no legal distinction was accepted between mere defamatory meaning and actionable libel for the defence's scope; the respondent's distribution system made vetting possible and failure to vet amounted to negligence, so liability and the damages awarded below are upheld.
14 Dec 2010
Defendants failed to comply with s.15(1) Jury Ordinance which undermined their entitlement to a jury; given plaintiffs incurred costs in opposing a jury trial and the uncertainty as to whether defendants would have succeeded despite non-compliance, the court applied the rule that costs follow the event and ordered defendants to pay plaintiffs' costs relating to the jury dispute from 29 October 2010 to 10 December 2010, with those costs to be summarily assessed under specified time limits.