Events | 2009.12.17
Decision on Trafigura's BBC libel case due today
A resolution is expected in the high court today of the libel action brought against the BBC by British-based oil traders Trafigura. A hearing is scheduled before Mr Justice Eady this morning.
Trafigura, which made thousands of people ill in West Africa when it arranged to dump toxic oil waste there, sued BBC Newsnight for libel after it was criticised on the programme. It was one of a series of legal threats and actions against the media in several countries brought by Trafigura. The moves culminated in uproar when its solicitors, Carter-Ruck, attempted to enforce a so-called "super-injunction" preventing reporting of parliamentary questions about the issue. Carter-Ruck was eventually forced to drop the injunction and allow publication of a scientific report obtained by the Guardian about the potential health dangers of the waste.
After repeatedly denying liability, Trafigura eventually agreed to pay out more than £30m to almost 30,000 inhabitants of Abidjan in Ivory Coast who had been injured by fumes from the waste. Emails published by the Guardian revealed that company executives knew of the dangers beforehand.
Trafigura\'s lawyers brought a libel action against the BBC on the basis that the oil traders had been wrongly accused of causing deaths, not just sickness. Official statements by a UN investigator, the Ivory Coast government and the British government referred to deaths being caused in Abidjan by the dumping.
But the eventual compensation settlement between Trafigura and the British law firm Leigh Day, which brought the action, resulted in an agreed statement making no claims about deaths. It was said that expert evidence, so far unpublished, found no evidence of any deaths.
BBC lawyers are understood to have been engaged in a mediation process with Carter-Ruck. The BBC would not comment on today\'s planned court hearing.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec[...]figura-bbc-libel-case-decision
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