Cases

Al Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation v Wall Street Journal Europe (No.2)

Facts

The defendant published an article reporting that the accounts of certain Saudi businesses, including the claimant bank, were being monitored by the Saudi central bank at the request of US law-enforcement agencies "in a bid to prevent them being used wittingly or unwittingly for the funneling of funds to terrorist organisations". Initially the defendant's principal defence was Reynolds qualified privilege. Shortly before the trial date it applied for permission to add a plea of justification relying on alleged associations of the bank, its executives or owners with persons suspected of terrorism. This was refused. The defendant then made a further application, seeking to justify meanings to the effect that the claimant had associated with others in such a way as to give rise to (a) sufficient grounds for investigating whether, or (b) reasonable grounds to suspect that it had facilitated terrorist funding.

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