About this case:

• Court:
  NI High Court
• Judge:
  Judge Adrian Colton QC

Delivering judgment for the High Court of Northern Ireland, Mr Justice Adrian Colton expressed that his first impression was that the impugned words were “indeed defamatory” of Mr Tweed and failed to sufficiently separate the role of Mr Tweed as a solicitor from the instructions and intentions of his clients, falling foul of Principle 18 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.

Mr Ringland KC and Mr McMahon appeared for the plaintiff, instructed by Gateley Tweed Solicitors, and Mr Coghlin KC and Ms Rowan appeared for the defendant, instructed by Carson McDowell LLP.

Background

On 12 February 2024, the plaintiff solicitor issued proceedings claiming that he was defamed in portion of a book written by the defendant entitled Subversion: The Strategic Weaponisation of Narratives and in a post published by the defendant on his X account. 

The plaintiff alleged that the words complained of were understood, in their natural and ordinary meaning, to mean that the plaintiff was inter alia a subversive, covert agent of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) using his legal practice to unfairly and improperly target academic publishers, universities and social media companies in order to protect the interests of the political regime in the UAE and that he is an unethical solicitor.

The defendant denied the meanings alleged by the plaintiff and pleaded an alternative meaning in relation to the words in the book.

The plaintiff brought an application seeking an order pursuant to Order 82, rule 3A of the Rules of the Court of Judicature (Northern Ireland) 1980 determining whether the words were capable of bearing the meaning attributed to them by the defendant and in the alternative seeking to strike out the meaning contended for by the defendant.

The defendant brought a similar cross-application in respect of the plaintiff’s alleged meanings and further, sought an order pursuant to Order 33, rule 3 of the Rules that the court would determine the single meaning of the publications identified in the plaintiff’s statement of claim as a preliminary issue.

The High Court

Having reviewed the relevant jurisprudence and the principles set out in Koutsogiannis v The Random House Group Ltd [2020] 4 WLR 25, Mr Justice Colton considered that the court’s task was to determine the single and ordinary meaning of the words complained of, being the meaning that the hypothetical reasonable reader would understand the words to bear.

The judge confirmed that when first reading the publications complained of, his first impression was that the words “were indeed defamatory of the plaintiff” and failed to separate sufficiently the role of the plaintiff as a solicitor from the instructions and intentions of his clients, falling foul of Principle 18 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers which provides: “Lawyers shall not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes as a result of discharging their functions.”

Having regard to the submissions of the parties, the court remained of the view that the words fell foul of Principle 18, considering that the words including “the libel lawyer therefore targets”, “aggressive cease-and-desist letters”, “law fare”, “is meant to intimidate critics”, “provides the UAE’s information network with ammunition to attack such critics” were clearly critical of the plaintiff. 

The court further observed that the fact that the author on page 9 of the book confirmed that some of the activities of private individuals “are not lawful” did not avail the defendant, as an allegation which falls short of unlawful conduct may still be defamatory.

Concluding that the reasonable hypothetical reader would conclude that the words in the book, in their natural and ordinary meaning, mean that the plaintiff acted unprofessionally in his work on behalf of Cornerstone Global Associates and that the “sting” of the words was that in identifying the plaintiff they failed to recognise his role in acting on behalf of his client, Mr Justice Colton warned: “It must be remembered that the reasonable hypothetical reader will not be a lawyer.”

However, the judge did not believe that the same reader would reasonably conclude that the words meant that the plaintiff was a subversive covert agent of the United Arab Emirates who was involved in nefarious conduct in the interests of a particular political regime, noting that the “identification does not go that far”.

As to the X post, Mr Justice Colton followed the impressionistic approach set out in Monroe v Hopkins [2017] EWHC 433 (QB); Aluko v Barton [2025] EWHC 853 (KB) and Vine v Barton [2024] EWHC 1268 (KB), finding that the focus of the post was on the plaintiff and that “It is the solicitor who is identified both in the text and in the accompanying photograph. The impressionistic view that I formed when first reading the text was that it was an express criticism of a solicitor in carrying out his professional role.”

In this regard, the court observed that the “sting of the post is that he has acted unprofessionally in acting on behalf of a secret agent ‘Matar’ and in the removal of content from Facebook and Twitter”.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the court ruled that the single correct meaning of the words complained of in the book was that:

The court further ruled that the single correct meaning of the words complained of in the X post was:

Tweed v Krieg