Atlantis World Group of Companies NV & Anor v Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso SPA

A corporate claimant seeking damages for libel must prove a trading or business reputation within the jurisdiction capable of being damaged. Trading in the jurisdiction is not essential, but the reputation must be established by evidence. A dormant company cannot ordinarily show that publication referred to it merely because it was intended to receive another company’s business.

Damages for publication by a third party cannot be recovered from the original publisher. A later republication may support vindication in an appropriate case, but only where the claimant can point to the award as demonstrating that the libel was unfounded. Minimal publication causing no substantial damage may justify dismissal as an abuse of process.

The claimants brought a libel action concerning an article published in the Italian magazine L'Espresso, with limited circulation in England and Wales. The article referred to the Atlantis business and alleged connections between its principal participants and organised crime.

The first claimant operated the relevant gaming business in Italy. The second claimant was an English company incorporated to receive that business but was dormant and had not yet taken over the relevant licence when the article was published. The defendant pleaded no substantive defence and put the claimants to proof of reference, meaning, reputation and damage.

The issues were whether the article referred to each claimant, what meaning it bore, whether either claimant had a trading reputation in the jurisdiction, whether damages could be recovered for a third-party internet republication, and whether the claims were an abuse of process.

1. Reference and meaning. The article referred to the first claimant but not to the second claimant, which was dormant and had done no more than instruct solicitors to effect its incorporation. Steel and Morris v McDonalds was distinguishable. The article did not convey that the first claimant was controlled by the mafia, but it did convey that there were reasonable grounds for suspicion and that the claimant was unsuitable to hold the relevant gaming licence.
2. Trading reputation. A corporate claimant must prove a trading or business reputation within the jurisdiction at the date of publication. It need not have traded there, but the issue is factual and requires evidence. The first claimant had never traded in England or Wales, had no clients, investors or competitors shown to be located there, and had only an exceedingly tenuous connection with the jurisdiction. It therefore failed to establish the requisite reputation. The second claimant’s claim was already defeated because the publication did not refer to it.
3. Republication and vindication. The unpleaded republication on the Jamma website could not be relied on without amendment, which would have required an adjournment. In any event, damages against the defendant for a third party’s republication were illegitimate. The vindicatory element recognised in Broome v Cassel concerns a future re-emergence of the libel and the claimant’s ability to point to the award as demonstrating its falsity.
4. Abuse of process. The court could dismiss a claim at trial for abuse of process. This claim bore the hallmarks of forum-shopping: it concerned an Italian publication, with minimal circulation in England, concerning businesses conducted in Italy. The damages case was also misconceived and, even if liability had been established, any general damages would have been so modest that the claim would not have been worth pursuing.
5. The claims of both claimants were dismissed.