Law Weblog

Funding of legal services

Wednesday 26 October 2005 at 3:15 pm | In News | Post Comment

Campbell v MGN Limited [2005] HL
[Funding of legal services CFAs do not interfere with the media’s right to freedom of expression]
C, Naomi Campbell sued MGM newspapers (Daily Mirror) for breach of confidence after they published photographs and additional details concerning alleged drug treatment.
The House of Lords ordered MGN to pay Ms Campbell’s costs. Her appeal to the House of Lords had been funded by way of a conditional fee agreement, with a 95-100% success fee (although it is thought she could afford a conventional fee arrangement).
This meant that although her legal costs came to around £300,000, nearly £600,000 could be claimed from the Mirror.

MGN claimed that such a liability infringe its right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Also, CFAs could lead to a newspaper self-imposing restraints on publication. Also, it might also lead to media defendants being significantly tempted to pay up something to be rid of unmeritorious litigation for purely commercial reasons.
Campbell argued that conditional fee agreements were necessary to provide the access to the courts required by Article 6 of the Convention.

Held: The regimen of CFAs and the imposition of costs and success fees on the losing party is legislative policy which the courts must accept. In addition, they held that there was nothing in the relevant legislation which suggested that a solicitor, before entering into a CFA, must inquire into his client’s means and satisfy himself that he could not fund the litigation himself. Their Lordships recognised that CFAs could have something of a chilling effect on newspapers exercising their right to freedom of expression, but considered that if this were a problem, a legislative solution would be required.

C won.