Craig Wright v Peter McCormack

A claimant who has established defamation may nevertheless receive only nominal damages where, by the date of assessment, a public judgment has exposed deliberate dishonesty in an essential part of the claim. Vindication has a moral element, and substantial damages may be unconscionable in those circumstances.

An injunction is an equitable remedy, not an entitlement. Deliberate dishonesty, difficulty of enforcement, extensive related litigation and the availability of a public judgment may make injunctive relief inappropriate. Embargo breaches warrant investigation where there is a real prospect of deliberate disclosure.

The claimant sued over publications stating that he was not Satoshi Nakamoto and that his claims were fraudulent. The earlier judgment found that some publications were defamatory and caused serious harm, but awarded nominal damages because the claimant had advanced a deliberately false case on serious harm.

This judgment dealt with four ancillary matters: an alleged breach of the embargo on the draft judgment; proposed injunctive relief; permission to appeal the nominal-damages decision; and costs, including applications to reopen earlier costs orders.

1. Embargo. The claimant’s messages, posted shortly after he had been informed of the substance of the draft judgment, created a real prospect that he had disclosed and intended to disclose its substance contrary to CPR 40E PD. The further emails might also amount to contempt, depending on his state of mind. Under CPR 81.6(1), a summons would issue requiring attendance at a directions hearing before another nominated judge. The alleged breaches by his business partner did not warrant further investigation because the tweets expressed a view repeatedly stated before and did not sufficiently indicate disclosure of the judgment.
2. Injunction and undertaking. The court declined both the offered undertaking and an injunction. An undertaking must be recorded clearly and framed so that breach can be enforced. The proposed carve-outs would create serious policing difficulties. An injunction was not available as of right. The claimant’s deliberate falsification of an essential part of his case weighed strongly against equitable relief. It was also undesirable to impose restrictions requiring repeated variation as further judgments emerged, or to place the burden on the defendant to seek discharge. The public judgment adequately marked the claimant’s success in establishing libel and the defendant’s failure to establish truth.
3. Permission to appeal. The court was bound by Campbell v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1143 and considered Joseph v Spiller and FlyMeNow Ltd v Quick Air Jet Charter GmbH correctly decided. Defamation damages compensate distress, injury to reputation and vindication. Unlike personal-injury compensation, vindication may be affected by the claimant’s own publicly exposed dishonesty. The proposed appeal had no real prospect of success and there was no other compelling reason for it to be heard.
4. Costs. The defendant was the successful party because only nominal damages were awarded. The claimant had to pay the defendant’s costs, including the reserved interlocutory costs, on the indemnity basis. Earlier final costs orders were not reopened: CPR 3.1(7) was subject to finality and required a material change of circumstances or misstated facts, and the later dishonesty was not causative of those orders. CPR 44.11 could not be used indirectly to achieve what CPR 3.1(7) did not permit, though it might remain relevant during assessment.
5. A contempt directions summons would issue; the undertaking and injunction were refused; permission to appeal was refused; the claimant was ordered to pay the specified costs on the indemnity basis; and the application to set aside the earlier costs orders was refused.

This was an ancillary judgment following the court’s earlier first-instance judgment in the same proceedings. No appellate history is stated in this judgment.