Banks, who founded Leave.EU, sued Cadwalladr personally over comments made in a TED talk and a Tweet. Ruling in Banks v Cadwalladr [2022] EWHC 1417 (QB) , Mrs Justice Steyn said the threshold for serious harm was met in the TED Talk but Cadwalladr had successfully established a public interest defence.
Steyn J said: ‘Based on her investigation, Ms Cadwalladr had reasonable grounds to believe that (i) Mr Banks had been offered “sweetheart” deals by the Russian government in the period running up to the EU referendum, although she had seen no evidence he had entered into any such deals; and (ii) Mr Banks’s financial affairs, and the source of his ability to make the biggest political donations in UK history, were opaque.’
Cadwalladr’s solicitor, RPC partner Keith Mathieson said: ‘The judgment gives significant support to the public interest defence in the law of defamation and the protection it offers journalists.’
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