Case Law, Ireland: McKeogh v John Doe 1 (No.2), Facebook, Google and mandatory take down injunctions

In November 2011, Eoin McKeogh was falsely branded as a thief on YouTube, Google, Facebook and a number of websites.  This was the result of a video and accompanying material which wrongly identified him as a man leaving a taxi without paying the fare in Monkstown, Dublin.  Mr Keogh has, since that date, made great efforts to remove this material from the internet.

News: Ireland, Jury award of €150,000 defamation damages against Irish Daily Mail

On 14 February 2013, a Irish High Court jury awarded defamation damages of €150,000 to billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien (pictured) in a claim against the Irish Daily Mail. The jury rejected the defence of honest opinion, finding that the article was not based on fact and was not in the public interest.

It’s not about what Mr Cowen did last summer, it’s about a fundamental right to privacy and accuracy that affects us all – Paul Tweed

In writing his Inforrm post on the basis of a speculative report in a Sunday newspaper, Dr Eoin O’Dell was not to know that a Complaint had in fact already been lodged with the Press Ombudsman on behalf of the former Taoiseach, Mr Brian Cowen.   Dr O’Dell’s comments were made  while the matter was still the subject of an ongoing adjudication process which has the full support of the newspaper industry.  Neither I nor Michael Kealey, the lawyer for the Irish Mail on Sunday, had been in a position to comment at the time in respect for the Ombudsman’s understandable preference that confidentiality be maintained during the initial stages of a complaints procedure aimed at encouraging a “mediated” solution in the first instance.

Ireland: I will always know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen – Eoin O’Dell

The image is a thumbnail of an apology printed in yesterday’s Irish Mail on Sunday; click through for a full-size twitpic by David Cochrane. It is headed “Brian Cowen”, and it consists of four paragraph. The first paragraph (which consists of a single sentence) begins by referring to their story of Cowen’s attendance at the Executive Education Programme at Stanford University which has been the subject of three earlier posts (here, here and here) on this blog, speculating as to the strength of Cowen’s possible complaint to the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman that article invaded his privacy.

Ireland: I still know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen – Eoin O’Dell

This image, by Corey Seeman on Flickr, is the Monument to your Future Collaborators, on the pavement outside the Knight Management Center in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where Brian Cowen attended the Executive Education Programme last Summer. Cowen probably walked past it, if not over it, several times.

Ireland: The Prime Minister who went to America to Learn to Become a Leader – Jonathan McCully

As reported on Inforrm ex-Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, Brian Cowen, is potentially pursuing a complaint against The Mail On Sunday for publishing a story about his return to education. Mr Cowen enrolled himself onto a US$58,000 Executive Program (for ‘senior executives‘) at Stanford University.  Dr. O’Dell makes a very persuasive prediction that the complaint would not be upheld by the Press Ombudsman or the Press Council of Ireland because of the public interest in the story due to Mr. Cowen’s status as a public figure, and the fact that photographs were taken of him on the University Campus which is a public place.

Ireland: I know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen – Eoin O’Dell

Brian Cowen served as Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland) from 2008 to 2011. He did not stand for re-election as a TD (MP) in 2011.

I know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen, and in fact we all know what you did last Summer, Mr Cowen, because the the Irish Mail on Sunday reported on your enrollment in the Executive Education Programme at Stanford University in California.

Leveson, the View from Ireland: #Cameron to #Leveson: LOL – Eoin O’Dell

One of the most entertaining pieces of evidence that Lord Justice Leveson heard during his inquiry’s hearings into the culture, practice and ethics of the press concerned UK Prime Minister David Cameron‘s understanding of the popular sms abbreviation LOL. He had thought it stood for “lots of love“, and had used it to sign off his texts to Rebekah Brooks (sometime Editor of the News of the World, and the Sun, and CEO of News International), until he discovered that it in fact stands for “laugh out loud” (see transcript for 11 May 2012, p76 (pdf)). Given his immediate rejection of the main press regulation recommendations in Lord Justice Leveson’s Report (also here), published on 29 November 2012, he is obviously laughing out loud at the Leveson Inquiry, not showering it with lots of love.

Ireland: And the dance goes on – Eoin O’Dell

In my previous post, I discussed a temporary injunction obtained by music promoter David Kavanagh to prevent the sale of Melanie Verwoerd’s memoir When We Dance. The book charts her Afrikaner upbringing, her marriage to the grandson of an architect of apartheid, her anti-apartheid involvement with the African National Congress, her time as South African ambassador to Ireland and as head of UNICEF Ireland, and her relationship with celebrity DJ Gerry Ryan until his unexpected death on the night of 29 April 2010.

Ireland: When ‘we dance’ to the High Court for an injunction – Eoin O’Dell

I have written before on this blog about prior restraints and temporary and permanent injunctions in defamation cases. Not long after the South African Constitutional Court effectively outlawed prior restraint in that jurisdiction (see Print Media South Africa v Minister of Home Affairs [2012] ZACC 22 (28 September 2012); blogged here), I learn that on Wednesday 10 October 2012 Gilligan J in the High Court in Ireland granted temporary injunctions to prevent the sale of a memoir written by the South African partner of a deceased celebrity Irish DJ (cover right):