In a judgment handed down today, [2026] EWHC 551 (KB), Mrs Justice Collins Rice has for the first time declared that a claim is a ‘statutory SLAPP’.
This follows the coming into force last June of ss.194-195 of the Economic Crime & Corporate Transparency Act 2023. The Act defines a ‘SLAPP’ and required the Civil Procedure Rules Committee to make rules for dealing with SLAPPs, including the new basis for strike-out under CPR r.3.4(2)(d).
The application was brought by the Defendants in the case of Setu Kamal v (1) Tax Policy Associates Ltd & (2) Daniel Neidle where the pleaded claims were for libel and malicious falsehood. In a detailed and extensive judgment, Mrs Justice Collins Rice held that the Defendants were entitled to a declaration that Mr Kamal’s claim was a statutory SLAPP, saying this was not a matter about which she had discretion at large but was a matter of fulfilling all parts of the statutory test on the facts [218].
The Defendants were also successful in their applications for (i) partial strike-out of the claim due to defective and irremediable pleading and on the ground that malicious falsehood should be struck out in its entirety and (ii) for summary judgment on the basis that in the libel claim Mr Kamal had no real prospects of defeating an ‘honest opinion’ defence. Mrs Collins Rice said she would have exercised the power to strike out Mr Kamal’s claim on the basis that it was a SLAPP had it not been unnecessary to do so [228].
5RB’s Greg Callus and Hannah Gilliland acted for the Defendants, Tax Policy Associates Ltd and Dan Neidle, instructed by Matthew Gills at the Good Law Project.
The Judgment can be read here.
