Ambrosiadou v Coward

In an application for interim relief engaging privacy and freedom of expression, the question under section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 is whether the claimant is likely to obtain injunctive relief at trial. That assessment is not determined exclusively by the procedural classification of foreign proceedings or by whether documents were technically accessible in public. The court must examine whether confidentiality has genuinely been lost and balance the competing Convention rights. Personal and family information may remain confidential despite being mentioned in court proceedings. Corporate allegations concerning a person’s business conduct do not necessarily attract a reasonable expectation of privacy under the misuse of private information principles. Relief may be refused against a claimant who cannot show likely success, while the refusal does not authorise publication in breach of independent duties of confidence or foreign injunctions.

The claimant, Elena Ambrosiadou, sought continuation of an injunction restraining her husband, Martin Coward, from using or publishing information derived from documents filed in contested divorce proceedings in Greece. The documents included material concerning their family, their 13-year-old son, and the parties’ business affairs. A judge had granted interim relief on 4 June 2010, which was extended pending the return hearing.

The central issues were whether the Greek hearing and documents had entered the public domain, whether the claimant was likely to obtain a permanent injunction, and how the claimant’s privacy rights, the son’s privacy rights and the defendant’s freedom of expression should be balanced.

1. Outcome. The claimant’s application was refused and the injunction was discharged, subject to an extension to allow an application for permission to appeal. The costs of the hearings were ordered to lie where they fell.
2. Section 12(3) of the Human Rights Act 1998 required consideration of whether the claimant was likely to obtain injunctive relief at trial. That question was not determined exclusively by whether the Greek hearing was technically public or private. The conflicting Greek expert evidence did not establish that the claimant was likely to obtain a permanent injunction.
3. The court was nevertheless required to carry out the ultimate balancing exercise between competing Convention rights. The son’s Article 8 rights were relevant although he was not a party. If there were a real risk that private family information would be publicised, an injunction would have been granted. The redacted personal information had not genuinely entered the public domain, and no public interest had been shown to outweigh the privacy rights.
4. The fact that material had been mentioned in, or technically made accessible through, foreign proceedings did not automatically destroy confidentiality. The court had to assess how far the information had actually become public. The approach in Att.-Gen. v Guardian Newspapers Ltd (No 2) was relevant to whether anything confidential remained to protect.
5. The company’s corporate documents were principally protected by the company’s own rights and by a Cypriot injunction. The company was not a party. Refusing additional relief sought by the claimant did not affect the defendant’s independent obligations under Cypriot law, contract or the foreign injunction.
6. Allegations concerning the claimant’s conduct in the company’s affairs did not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy merely because they arose in a family dispute. The protection of personal information recognised in Campbell v MGN Ltd did not extend that far. Risks of libel or contempt were matters for the defendant to assess and did not determine this application.
7. The defendant had not established that all information in his application notice could be published freely. The refusal of relief concerning that document rested on the claimant’s failure to satisfy section 12(3), not on acceptance of the defendant’s broad public-domain argument.

A judge granted interim relief on 4 June 2010. The matter returned to the High Court before Mr Justice Eady, who refused the claimant’s application and discharged the injunction, extending it temporarily to permit an application for permission to appeal.