1. This appeal arose out of an action for libel in respect of words published in a magazine distributed by the appellant in Hong Kong which suggested that the respondent was involved in paying bribes to corrupt officials on the Mainland. 2. The main issue in the courts below was whether the appellant could avail itself of the defence of innocent dissemination. The Recorder and the Court of Appeal both rejected the appellant’s contention that the defence was only defeated where a subordinate publisher distributed with knowledge that the material contained an actionable libel on the plaintiff to which there was no defence. It was held that the appellant was not entitled to rely on the defence because its ignorance of the defamatory material was due to the adoption of a system whereby it did not vet the issues of the magazine it distributed despite the fact the banner heading on the magazine’s cover was clearly such as to put any reader of it on notice to the possibility that the related articles in it might contain defamatory statements. 3. The question before the Court of Final Appeal regarded the nature of the knowledge possessed by a subordinate publisher which suffices to exclude the defence of innocent dissemination. The appellant contended that the defence is excluded if the subordinate publisher is unable to show on a balance of probabilities that it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to have known that: (a) the material distributed contained the statement complained of; (b) such statement bore a defamatory meaning; and (c) there was no defence against an action for defamation. 4. The Court rejected the appellant’s contention for the following reasons: 4.1. The rationale of the defence of innocent dissemination is to mitigate the harshness of the strict publication rule which does not require the first or main publisher to be aware of the defamatory nature of the material he is publishing. To require a subordinate publisher to prove an absence of knowledge that the publication contained a defamatory statement to which there was no defence would be to put the defence on a very different footing to its underlying rationale of mitigating the harshness of the strict publication rule. 4.2. The argument in favour of considering such knowledge for the defence is unsupported by case authority. 4.3. There are significant practical difficulties which call into question the soundness of the appellant’s contention. 4.4. Requiring proof of knowledge that the publication contained a defamatory statement to which there was no defence to exclude the defence would skew the balance between freedom of expression and reputational protection heavily in favour of the subordinate publisher. 4.5. In none of the common law jurisdictions considered in the case, where the defence of innocent dissemination has been put on a statutory basis, is such knowledge made an element of the defence. 5. Having rejected the appellant’s submission that proof of knowledge that the publication contained a defamatory statement to which there was no defence was required to defeat the defence of innocent dissemination (as opposed to knowledge either that the publication contained the statement complained of or that it contained a defamatory statement), and in light of the concurrent findings on the appellant’s negligence, it followed that the appeal must be dismissed. 6. In their concluding remarks, the Court reiterated that what is sufficient to establish the exercise of reasonable care is fact and context sensitive. In particular, the Court contrasted the position of an internet web host functioning in a “many-to-many” context where it might be reasonable to set the relevant negligence standard at a level that only exposes the distributor to liability when there has been a failure to respond appropriately after defamatory material is drawn to its attention. Whether the same standard of reasonable care should be applied to a distributor of a newspaper or magazine depended on the facts. However, this was not such a case. 7. The Court unanimously dismissed the appeal.