![[Freelance]](../gif/fl3H.png)
Judge slaps down SLAPP-SLAPP claim
BACK IN October the Freelance described a libel case against tax researcher Dan Neville as a “SLAPP SLAPP“ because one of the grounds set out in a summary of a claim against him was that in his earlier reporting he alleged that “his legal claim against the Defendants is abusive and intended to suppress scrutiny”. In other words, he was being sued for saying that his being sued is... bad.
On 11 March Dan won, in a manner that will be useful to journalists. The Honourable Mrs Justice Collins Rice DBE CB struck out the libel claim - indeed slapped it down - and added that “the Defendants are also entitled to a declaration that Mr Kamal’s claim is a statutory SLAPP.”
A SLAPP is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” - a legal action whose purpose is to shut down reporting or commentary, for example. If Dan was being sued for complaining that a lawsuit against him is a SLAPP, that would make this claim a SLAPP-SLAPP, we said.
The original claim of malicious falsehood and libel was made by a barrister, Setu Kamal, who objected to a February 2025 report on tax avoidance and suggested that he had lost £8 million of work due to it.
Dan and his company (“the Defendants”) applied to have the case struck out, both on the grounds that it was improperly presented and bound to fail - and under section 195 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which defines a “SLAPP claim” in the context of provision in the Civil Procedure Rules to allow the prompt striking-out of such claims. This case is the first application of section 195 of which Dan or the Freelance is aware.
It is worth giving a long extract from the funding by Mrs Justice Collins Rice that the:
“conduct of this claim has been unsatisfactory in the many other respects I have identified, whether intentionally or not. I have been given no basis for an expectation that that is unlikely to continue, or that the cumulative effect, intentionally or not, is likely to be otherwise than oppressive for the Defendants. The claim itself would as a minimum require comprehensive repleading in order to progress, and I have been offered no clear prospectus for the successful accomplishment of that task. No other good reason to permit it to proceed to trial has been advanced beyond those I have already dealt with in this judgment. It is not consistent with the overriding objective to contemplate permitting this case to go to trial in these circumstances. I would have exercised the power to strike out Mr Kamal’s claim on the alternative basis that it was a SLAPP, had it not been unnecessary to do so.”
As a judge's exposition of a case brought by a barrister, that is harsh.
Note that alongside the many unsatisfactory aspects identified, the judge found “evidence of a genuinely held opinion which a court is entitled to accept”, which meant that the claim was bound to fail under the old rules.
The court did not rule on the SLAPP-SLAPP claim in the plaintiff's summary. The Freelance did fail to find a part of the formal particulars of claim that deals with allegations of action “intended to suppress scrutiny”. We are a bit sad that there is no precedent set on this - but much happier for Dan and for journalists who may benefit from this ruling in the future.
We defeated an £8m libel claim taxpolicy.org.uk Mar 2026
TikTok tax avoidance from Arka Wealth taxpolicy.org.uk Feb 2025
It’s the costs, not the damages Duncan Campbell at our March 2023 meeting