From
The Guardian
In a precedent-setting move, the Australian high court has ruled that a Dow Jones subsidiary can be tried in the state of Victoria for a story it published on its website.
Joseph
Gutnik, a Melbourne mining magnate, brought a charge of defamation against Dow Jones for a story that appeared on its Barron's web site. Gutnik's lawyers argued that the story could be read by Australians and therefore should be tried locally.
Lawyers
for Dow Jones responded that despite where the story could be read, it was published in the United States and therefore the case should be tried there. The Australian court disagreed, establishing jurisdiction at the point of viewing. This is thought to
be the first such occurrence of jurisdiction via internet.
The ruling sends an unnerving message to internet publishers around the world. They could be forced to defend themselves at huge expense in courts on the other side of the world, possibly over
remarks that would not even attract legal liability at home.
The judgment gives a whole new dimension to the forum-shopping which has made London, noted for its pro-claimant libel laws, the libel capital of the world. For printed publica tions, the
distribution of only a few copies is enough to open the English courts to foreign libel claimants. The Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, for example, has been allowed to sue Forbes, the US business magazine, at the high court in London.
With the
internet, publication happens worldwide, wherever the words are viewed online. An English nuclear physicist, Laurence Godfrey, has sued in the UK, Canada, the US and New Zealand and won out-of-court settlements for defamatory comments about him posted in
internet chatrooms.
While the Australian judgment is not a precedent for the English courts, it would be "highly persuasive" here, said Dan Tench, of the media law firm Olswangs. English courts regularly adopt rulings from the courts of
other common law countries where no similar English case has reached the courts. Tench added: I would certainly expect the same result here.
But not everyone will be able to sue in any particular country. Lawyers said there would still be
arguments about which country's courts were the appropriate venue and libel claimants would still have to show some links with the country where they wanted to sue. Dow Jones had claimed it would have to consider libel law "from Afghanistan to
Zimbabwe" before posting anything on its website. In the Australian case, the remarks claimed to be defamatory were about Gutnick's business activities in Australia, the place where he is best known and where his reputation matters most.