DR CRAIG STEVEN WRIGHT v MAGNUS GRANATH

On an application for summary judgment, the court must decide whether the claim has a realistic, rather than fanciful, prospect of success without conducting a mini-trial. In a defamation claim, serious harm under Defamation Act 2013, section 1(1), must be assessed by reference to actual or reasonably inferable facts about the publication’s impact. The court may consider the meaning, circumstances and scale of publication, the quality of publishees and the likely grapevine effect. Evidence of other publications alleging the same misconduct generally cannot be used to reduce serious harm or establish causation, unless the claim requires isolation of a specific consequence. Disputed facts about the claimant’s conduct and reputation ordinarily require trial.

The claimant sued in libel over a tweet alleging that he had fraudulently attempted to prove that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, the developer of Bitcoin. He sought damages and an injunction for publication in England and Wales. The defendant applied for summary judgment under CPR rule 24.2, arguing that the claimant had no real prospect of proving serious harm to reputation and that there was no compelling reason for a trial.

The claim followed earlier jurisdictional litigation, but the present application concerned only whether the pleaded libel claim could proceed. The central issues were the likely scale and quality of publication, the relevance of the claimant’s alleged pre-existing reputation and conduct, and the admissibility of other publications making similar allegations.

1. Application dismissed. The defendant failed to establish that the claimant had no real prospect of proving serious harm or that the claim should be disposed of without trial.
2. Under CPR rule 24.2 and the approach in Easyair Limited (Trading As Openair) v Opal Telecom Limited, the court considers whether the claim is realistic, must avoid a mini-trial, and must take account of evidence reasonably expected to be available at trial. Final determination may nevertheless be appropriate on a short point of law where the evidence and argument are sufficient.
3. For section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013, serious harm is assessed by reference to actual facts about impact. Serious harm may be established by inference from the evidence as a whole. Relevant matters include the meaning of the words, the claimant’s situation, the circumstances and scale of publication, the quality of the publishees and the likely grapevine effect.
4. The available Twitter evidence did not support the defendant’s contention that publication was necessarily minimal. The defendant had not disclosed all relevant account data, and the material supplied appeared incomplete and presented on a skewed basis. Further disclosure and a fair assessment of the data were required.
5. The allegation went to the core of the claimant’s professional reputation in the cryptocurrency field. The likely readership comprised people with particular knowledge of Bitcoin. Serious harm was not simply a numbers exercise; the quality of publishees could be decisive.
6. The alleged 2004 contempt finding and Australian tax report did not establish that the claimant’s reputation was so tarnished that the tweet could not cause serious harm. Their relevance and admissibility remained doubtful or unresolved.
7. The parties disputed what occurred in 2016 and the claimant’s responsibility for material published on his website. Those issues, together with the extensive truth defence, could not properly be resolved summarily.
8. The rule in Dingle prevented reliance on other publications repeating the same allegation as general background to defeat serious harm. The pleaded case did not involve a specific consequence requiring isolation of damage caused by the tweet, so the causation exception did not apply.