In a judgement reported around the English-speaking world, a Northern Ireland appeals court yesterday reaffirmed the availability of the ‘fair comment’ defence to authors and publishers of restaurant (and other) reviews

We reported over a year ago on a first-instance award against the Irish News, for £25,000, which seemed to call the whole defence into question. However – as Lord Lester QC, counsel for the newspaper concerned, commented – it would be “perfectly ludicrous” if aggrieved restaurateurs (and so on) could sue simply because they didn’t like reviews, and that is mercifully the view effectively upheld by the appeal judgement.

For the most detailed summary of the background and judgement, see The Times.

PS (11 April) The House of Lords has refused the restaurateur leave to appeal the judgement, reports cateresearch.com.

Still unsolved, incidentally, is the mystery of why the restaurateur not only sued in the first place, but has pursued this case so aggressively. There have never been any facts reported which tend to support the notion that this was a ‘hatchet job’, which means that it was always going to be difficult to sustain a libel claim in the face of a standard ‘fair comment’ defence.

Reports also suggest that this is the sort of restaurant whose clientèle are not, to put it crudely, of the class that is likely to be particularly influenced one way or the other by reviews, so the business case for pursuing the libel claim in the first place seems tenuous at best.