Lawfare and UK Court System — House of Commons, 2022-01-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Liam Dominic Byrne (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come on that in a moment The truth is that the truth is under attack by oligarchs with Russian connections because they are seeking to disguise the origin of their fortunes, their methods of business and, of course, their networks of friends. The result is that the frontline of this hybrid war now stetches from the streets of Donbass and Crimea and the troll farms of St Petersburg to the law courts of Britain—our courts, in England, here in London It was the Intelligence and Security Committee—whose distinguished Chair, theright hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), is present—that made clear on, I believe, page 22 of its landmark report on Russia that the interests of Russian business are now so closely entwined with the interests of the Russian state that it is impossible to unravel them. It is these honourable folk who are now using English courts as their preferred location for the business of truth silencing. According to a survey of 63 journalistsin 41 countries, more cases were brought against journalists in the UK than in America and Europe combined.As theright hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden said, the United States and Europe are now moving to shut this down, but we are not. That is why we are now becoming the global capital of the lawfare industry There are now so many cases that today we can reveal—it was evident in the right hon. Gentleman’s speech—what might be described as the oligarch’s playbook. Step one is to target the individual, not the organisation, because the individual is most vulnerable, and take aim at the slightest error. Arron Banks did not go for The Guardian or The Observer; he went for Carole Cadwalladr, and took aim at a single sentence in her TED talk. As we have heard, ENRC went after Tom Burgis personally after he flagged up the information that witnesses to its crimes were being murdered. Paul Radu, who happens to be Romanian, is being pursued in English courts by corrupt Azerbaijani politicians. We have to ask: why are powerful interests from far away suing journalists who are not English and do not write for English titles? Why are they being sued in English courts? Surely that must tell us that something in our country is going badly wrong Step two is to maximise intimidation, using covert surveillance if necessary. As we have heard, investigators and journalists are now being inundated with data subject access requests so that people who are up to no good can smoke out what they are up to. ENRC agents surveilled Tom Burgis, who was in a meeting that had been arranged on an encrypting messaging app; how on earth did it know about that? The Financial Times journalist Dan McCrum, who helped to break the Wirecard story, was subject to online abuse, hacking, electronic eavesdropping and physical surveillance. These people know no boundaries. They are completely out of control At one stage, I have been told, Elizabeth Denham, who was the Information Commissioner at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, was warned by counter-terrorism officers that MI5 had evidence that she was under active intrusive surveillance ordered by Mr Arron Banks, so her office had to be swept. Others have told us about the "hack and leak" technique whereby systems are hacked into, and information is then leaked to serve as a trigger for defamation proceedings Step three is then to file the most ludicrously exaggerated claims. Mr Abramovich’s attack on Catherine Belton took completely out of context what Ms Belton had actually written. We know that Tom Burgis has been attacked because he is alleged to have said that a corporate entity had ordered the murders. There are extraordinary exaggerations and twisting of what has actually been written Step four is to co-ordinate the claims with others to maximise intimidation and, indeed, legal costs. Catherine Belton was subject to an onslaught first from the Alpha group, then from Abramovich, then from Mikhail Fridman, then from Shalva Chigirinsky, then from Pyotr Aven, and then from Rosneft—and we are being invited to believe that somehow this was unco-ordinated. They must think we are complete idiots Step five, as we have heard, is to file claims in multiple jurisdictions—an example is Mr Abramovich’s suit against HarperCollins in Australia—to maximise the cost for journalists, writers and their publishers. The impact is the creation of legal bills that are so big that they chill and kill the truth. Catherine Belton’s case cost well over £1.5 million, and it would have cost millions more if it had gone any further. Carole Cadwalladr’s case is costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. Major Karpov’s case against Bill Browder left Mr Browder with a bill of £600,000, which the plaintiff has not paid because when he lost his case, lo and behold, he subsequently disappeared Democracy’s watchdogs are having their tongues cut out and our writers are having their writing fingers broken. The result is that suspicion multiplies and the risk of corruption grows. I am so glad that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden has put before the House details of Mr Mohamed Amersi, which is a case in point. On Monday I shared intelligence with the House from sources inside the Kremlin and the Russian Government, including information about one of Mr Amersi’s business partners, a man called Leonard Bogdan, who sources tell me has "a definite FSB background." I now learn that Mr Bogdan’s daughter works for the Conservative party’s central office and—surprise, surprise—was briefly secretary of Conservative Friends of the Middle East and North Africa We then learned, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that Mr Amersi’s associate, friend, colleague and lunching partner, Carl Hunter, threatened a former Member of Parliament, Charlotte Leslie, that without an apology to Mr Amersi the case had "all possibility of going further to a really gruesome stage." What on earth is going on in this country when people like this are able to issue threats to anyone, never mind former Members of this House? And still Mr Amersi thinks he can go to a four-day trial and take Ms Leslie to court We still do not know the origin of Mr Banks’s donations to Leave.EU. When the Electoral Commission warned about the poor National Crime Agency investigation, Mr Banks sued the Electoral Commission and forced it to take down a statement about his lies. We have heard from regulators who fear judicial review because a subject access request might come in from representatives of organised crime groups that are seeking banking licences. This is complete madness. Perhaps there are perfectly innocent explanations for all this, and maybe I have too suspicious a mind, but I would like to know the truth. I want newspapers and investigators to be able to hunt down the truth and, where necessary, publish it That is why we need action and we need it now. We are still governed by the great European Magna Carta that we wrote in the 1950s, the European convention on human rights. It establishes a positive obligation to safeguard the freedom of a pluralist media and to create a favourable environment for participation in public debate. We are failing to uphold that duty It is not simply libel law being abused, as Bill Browder was attacked using cross-border insolvency legislation. We have heard how GDPR is now being misused by oligarchs. I was the shadow Minister on the Public Bill Committee on the Data Protection Act 2018, and I can expressly tell the House that it was not the intention of the previous Parliament for the Act to be used in this malicious way The new anti-corruption strategy and the economic crime plan that the Government have to refresh need to include five quick provisions. First, we need what are known as SLAPP-back laws so that a judge can rapidly dismiss a case if it is designated as strategic legal action against public participants. Secondly, we need a public figure defence, as America has, so a person who sues a public figure has a much higher bar to clear and needs to be able to prove actual malice. Thirdly, we need a sanctions regime against vexatious litigants, which could include paying 100% of costs or even punitive costs, to deter the misuse of our courts that we are now seeing. Fourthly, we need a defamation defence fund on the lines proposed by President Biden, and I humbly suggest that it should be funded by a windfall tax on the law firms making millions from the misuse of our courts Time and again, we have heard in our research about the behaviour of Hugh Tomlinson, Geraldine Proudler, Carter-Ruck, Mishcon de Reya, Schillings, CMS and Olswang, and it is now time for the regulatory body to pass new rules to ensure these firms follow a good model of litigation principles that ensures rules of good conduct and even liability for clients who refuse to pay their bills when they lose their case, like Major Karpov.