"We say, without intending any disrespect to a great national dish, that on true analysis, a bowl of spaghetti Milanese is a better image for the claimants' case - jumbled pieces of evidence superficially tasty in parts but whose individual strands lead either nowhere or to muddled conclusions or to ends which are simply obscure."
The above was taken from an article in the UK Daily Telegraph:
Libel action 'like a bowl of spaghetti'
This is a very interesting aricle for those who follow libel cases, or indeed those who are considering mounting thier own case. The basics are that Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of WPP, is suing for alledged libellous statements of alledged money laundering and criminial activity. It all ivolved from a broken close friendship between Mr Benatti and Ms Weber and of Sir Martin's termination of Mr Benatti's consultancy as country manager for WPP Italy.
The problem is that even though there appears to be evidence aplenty, of the forensic variety (computer records etc) of someone at the Defendants company, FullSix, actually posting the offending writings, the company have simply said "that the FullSix stance was that if anyone in its workforce was responsible, it was a highly regrettable piece of personal misconduct which had nothing to do with the company's proper business and was wholly unauthorised and, in all the circumstances, they were not liable."
They followed with ""In neither case do the claimants have any witness who can give any direct evidence that Mr Benatti .... did it,"
This will be an interesting one to follow. How many libel cases would fall apart if the defendant could say "It might have been from my computer, but nobody actually saw me do it, therfore I am not liable". How insane would that be?
Fullsix do have a point though. If an employee at a huge firm were to libel someone on the web, it would be a stretch to hold the company responsible, would it not? Also a company is a seperate entity under law (it can sue and be sued) so its right to defend itself against being held liable for the defamation would seem to be a good strategy and in our humble opinion, may be a winning one.
It would seem that if this case is lost by Mr Sorrell it will be a valuable lesson for those who seek to protect their name in the courts, the lesson being 'sue the person, not the company'. This throws up the problem of suing people on the web, the individual has to be indentified to make a case stick and we bet that it cost Mr Sorrell a fortune to do it in this case.
Of course, if the Judge in this case does rule in favor of Mr Sorrell then I can see a raft of employment contracts being changed to preclude employees from making comment on the net.
We are very much in favour of seeing those who libel innocent people on the Internet being brought to book,its just bullying outside the playground really, but a situation where a company (albeit owned or directed by the alledged defamer) being held liable would, in our book, be a step in the wrong direction.
The above was taken from an article in the UK Daily Telegraph:
Libel action 'like a bowl of spaghetti'
This is a very interesting aricle for those who follow libel cases, or indeed those who are considering mounting thier own case. The basics are that Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive of WPP, is suing for alledged libellous statements of alledged money laundering and criminial activity. It all ivolved from a broken close friendship between Mr Benatti and Ms Weber and of Sir Martin's termination of Mr Benatti's consultancy as country manager for WPP Italy.
The problem is that even though there appears to be evidence aplenty, of the forensic variety (computer records etc) of someone at the Defendants company, FullSix, actually posting the offending writings, the company have simply said "that the FullSix stance was that if anyone in its workforce was responsible, it was a highly regrettable piece of personal misconduct which had nothing to do with the company's proper business and was wholly unauthorised and, in all the circumstances, they were not liable."
They followed with ""In neither case do the claimants have any witness who can give any direct evidence that Mr Benatti .... did it,"
This will be an interesting one to follow. How many libel cases would fall apart if the defendant could say "It might have been from my computer, but nobody actually saw me do it, therfore I am not liable". How insane would that be?
Fullsix do have a point though. If an employee at a huge firm were to libel someone on the web, it would be a stretch to hold the company responsible, would it not? Also a company is a seperate entity under law (it can sue and be sued) so its right to defend itself against being held liable for the defamation would seem to be a good strategy and in our humble opinion, may be a winning one.
It would seem that if this case is lost by Mr Sorrell it will be a valuable lesson for those who seek to protect their name in the courts, the lesson being 'sue the person, not the company'. This throws up the problem of suing people on the web, the individual has to be indentified to make a case stick and we bet that it cost Mr Sorrell a fortune to do it in this case.
Of course, if the Judge in this case does rule in favor of Mr Sorrell then I can see a raft of employment contracts being changed to preclude employees from making comment on the net.
We are very much in favour of seeing those who libel innocent people on the Internet being brought to book,its just bullying outside the playground really, but a situation where a company (albeit owned or directed by the alledged defamer) being held liable would, in our book, be a step in the wrong direction.
2 comments:
Amazing history. I use to work at Fullsix some years ago. I'm trying to remember and am not sure, but I think that human resource department (under the request of Tinelli himself) forced the employers to sign an agreement about internet navigation monitoring. If so, it sounds quite strange that they could not identify anyone guilty of posting from their network. Another amazing fact: Tinelli used to host an aggressive dog in the office, even when he was away. So, who could be so brave to enter the office and use Tinelli's laptop? Maybe some dogsitter? :-)
Thanks for the info...careful... with that kind of info they will be a subpeona in the post!!!!
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