Published on 19 September 2022

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 2511/22 INDEPENDENT PRINT LIMITED and EVENING STANDARD LIMITED against the United Kingdom lodged on 22 December 2021 communicated on 31 August 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

Like MGN Limited v. the United Kingdom (no. 39401/04, 18 January 2011), the present case concerns the recoverability of success fees where proceedings are brought against a newspaper by claimants who have entered into a conditional fee arrangement (“ CFA” ).

Following the Court’s judgment in MGN Limited , recoverable success fees in publication and privacy proceedings were only abolished with effect from 6 April 2019. The applicants’ present complaint concerns their liability to pay success fees incurred by the same claimant who brought successful defamation claims against them in respect of articles published both in print and online.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the recoverability of the claimant’s success fees violate the applicants’ rights under Article 10 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis , MGN Limited v. the United Kingdom (no. 39401/04, 18 January 2011)?

2. Did the operation of the costs regime in the present case raise any other issues under Article 10 of the Convention?

3. Have the applicants exhausted domestic remedies within the meaning of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention?