Sunday, March 02, 2008

New York passes law against 'libel tourists' - Times Online

New York passes law against 'libel tourists'
The state will protect authors against foreign libel judgments after a US journalist was sued by a Saudi businessman in London
Times Online and PA February 29, 2008 Politicians in New York have acted to protect the state¹s writers and publishers from so-called libel tourism after an English libel judgment went against an American author.

The Libel Terrorism Protection Act was given a unanimous passage in the state Senate in Albany, the New York Law Journal reported. The new bill was introduced after the New York Court of Appeals ruled in December that the state¹s laws did not protect Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author, from a possible bid by a Saudi Arabian businessman to enforce a summary judgment issued by the High Court in London.

The bill is intended to amend New York¹s so-called "long-arm statute" in order to give the state¹s courts jurisdiction over a foreign libel claimant who won a judgment against an author or publisher with sufficient physical or financial ties to the
state.

It would allow New York¹s courts to declare that a foreign judgment was unenforceable if the courts decided that the libel
laws in foreign jurisdictions did not protect freedom of speech and the press to the same extent as the laws in New York and theUS.

The New York Law Journal reported that the Bill had made ³unusually swift² progress since being introduced into the
legislature and said new legislation usually took several months, or even years, to reach the floor of the Assembly or Senate.

Dr Ehrenfeld claimed her book, Funding Evil, in which she makes a series of allegations about the charitable activities of wealthy Saudi businessman Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, was protected under the freedom of speech section of the US constitution.

But in a 17-page ruling by Judge Ciparick in December, the New York Court of Appeals in Albany ruled that it did not have
jurisdiction over Mr Mahfouz as they found he had not carried out any business in the state.

The Sheikh has always vehemently denied any link with terrorism, or terrorist support or funding, and claimed that the book was defamatory in suggesting that he supported al-Qaeda and terrorism either directly or indirectly.

In January, Democratic Assemblyman Rory Lancman and Republican Senator Dean Skelos introduced the ³Libel Terrorism Protection Act² to remedy what they see as a deficiency in the law.

Mr Lancman said: ³This legislation will give New York¹s journalists, authors and press the protection and tools they need
to continue to fearlessly expose the truth about terrorism and its enablers, and to maintain New York¹s place as the free speech capitol of the world.²

Mr Skelos added: ³The ability to expose the truth about international terrorist activities is critically-important to the
global war on terror.

³These foreign courts are trampling the First Amendment protections guaranteed to American writers and journalists by our
Constitution and this legislation will ensure that they cannot infringe upon our freedom.²

Senator Martin Golden, who supports the legislation, said: ³Under the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, writers and journalists would have foreign defamation suits declared unenforceable in New York unless the foreign law provides the same free speech protections guaranteed under our Constitution.

³In effect, we are giving New Yorkers a chance to have their fair day in court.²

In court papers filed last year, Dr Ehrenfeld described Mr Mahfouz as a ³serial libel tourist².

Her book was never published in the UK but 23 copies entered England.

Mr Mahfouz, who denies all the allegations in the book about the funding of terrorist organisations, turned to English law and
brought a successful libel action against her three years ago.

Mr Mahfouz has had a series of victories in English courts, and in August last year, the Cambridge University Press withdrew all
copies of Alms for Jihad, a book which took a similar line to Dr Ehrenfeld.

But some American librarians have refused the publishers¹ request to withdraw the book from their shelves and surviving copies are for sale for hundreds of pounds on the internet.

Read this article at:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3461623
.ece

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