Cases

Lonzim Plc & others v Sprague

Facts

Cs were an Isle of Man company (C1) and two individual executive directors of C1. D, resident in S Africa (SA), was a director of a company which owned a substantial shareholding in C1. The publications complained of were (i) words spoken by D at an AGM of C1 in London, (ii) words spoken by D to a SA journalist (SP), and (iii) the publication of those words in an article written by SP for the online edition of the Financial Mail (FM), a SA journal, which Cs claimed was published substantially here. Cs issued proceedings and obtained permission to serve them on D in SA.

D applied to strike out the whole action as an abuse of process on the ground that Cs had no real prospect of establishing any real damage to their reputations in this jurisdiction. Cs abandoned the SP slander claim (after D produced evidence that the offending publication had taken place in SA) and applied to amend to rely upon further publication on the FM website of words allegedly spoken by D.

Also