Robin Cammish v Clive Hughes
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lady Justice Arden |
| Judgment Date | 12 December 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] EWCA Civ 1655 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2/2012/1251 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 12 December 2012 |
Lady Justice Arden
Lord Justice Lloyd Jones
And
Mr Justice Tugendhat
Case No: A2/2012/1251
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
(QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION)
CARDIFF DISTRICT REGISTRY
HH JUDGE CHAMBERS QC
(SITTING AS A JUSTICE OF THE HIGH COURT)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Godwin Busuttil (instructed by PSB Law LLP) for the Appellant
Mr Timothy Atkinson (instructed by Morgan LaRoche) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 28 November 2012
These are defamation proceedings which the respondent has brought against the appellant for the purpose of vindicating his reputation as a result of a damaging statement issued by the appellant. Trial has yet to take place. The costs have been considerable. The appellant applied to HHJ Chambers QC sitting as a judge of the High Court of Justice in the Cardiff District Registry for an order dismissing the proceedings without a trial: he sought to show that there is no real and substantial tort in issue in the proceedings. HHJ Chambers QC dismissed that application by his order dated 4 May 2012. The appellant now appeals to this court. Accordingly, the central issue posed by this appeal is whether there is now any real and substantial tort to be tried in these proceedings. If not, it is established, under the law developed by this court in Jameel v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] QB 946, that the court should dismiss the proceedings to prevent the incurring of further legal costs and use of court resources. Some idea of the scale of the costs to date can be gained from the parties' schedules of costs for this appeal alone, which together amount to some £70,000.
This is the judgment of the court, to which each member of the court has contributed. We announced the result of this appeal at the end of the hearing with reasons to follow in our judgment. We said that we considered that the judge was right in the meaning that he gave for the words complained of and that those words attained the level of seriousness necessary for the maintenance of defamation proceedings. However, we went on to say that we considered that the proceedings had in fact now served their purpose and should be brought to an end on terms as to costs.
The words complained of
There is little dispute about the facts. We need only deal with them in outline.
The appellant owns and runs companies that at the material time were seeking planning permission for the construction of two biomass power plants in South Wales.
The respondent was the owner and a director of QP Group Ltd, which provided management consultancy services to "blue-chip" companies, until its dissolution in June 2009. It is clear from the material from Companies House that it was a company of some substance. The respondent is a resident of Kidwelly, near Swansea in South Wales. The respondent continues to be involved in business through another QP company.
The respondent was also the chairman and a director of a company called Coedbach Action Team Ltd. This was an action group of local residents who were opposing the grant of permission for the construction of the two biomass stations, one in Kidwelly and another in Swansea. The opposition included attending planning inquiries into whether the applications should be granted.
In April 2010, a twelve-page bundle of documents was sent anonymously to a number of recipients.
The first page was typewritten. It referred to the fact that the respondent was the leader of a residents' action group opposing the grant of planning permission for two power stations. It read:
"Dear All
Please see Companies House on your Mr Cammish Coed Bach Action Team Ltd – between him and [his] girlfriend they have dissolved over 20 companies not able to sell anyone of them and coming to Swansea to tell you how to do it
Maritime Association,
SA1 Residents,
MP's
AM's
Press.
etc etc
Inspectors — Mr Emyr Jones
Mr John Woodcock"
The remainder of the bundle consisted of some copy emails between the respondent and members of the committee of the Coedbach Action Team Ltd, and also the fruits of a search for directorships carried out at Companies House against the respondent's name. This search showed that the respondent was the director of 5 companies and a past director of some 15 dissolved companies. The respondent does not complain about the data obtained from Companies House, which is available for public inspection.
The respondent does, however, complain about the first page of the bundle and a handwritten message at the top of the second page of the bundle. This message reads:
"Coedbach Action Team Ltd
See statement that on 31 March public inquiry cancelled and to have the appeal dismissed, when Mr Hughes was asked — he knows nothing about it. See Mr Cammish dissolved 15 companies = not able to run them
Supporter of the power plants @ for jobs in area"
The reference to cancellation of a public inquiry was derived from one of the emails included in the bundle. This was an email from the respondent and he stated in effect that a particular hearing of the inquiry had been cancelled following representations. The appellant claims to have been provoked by this inaccuracy of expression, but in our judgment nothing turns on it.
There can be no doubt that it was unreasonable to infer from the fact that the respondent was a former director of dissolved companies, even 15 of them, that he was unfit to run them. The fact that a company is dissolved does not mean that its demise was the result of the misconduct or mismanagement by the directors or any of them. Companies may be dissolved for many reasons, and they may be dissolved without any insolvency procedure.
In fact, the respondent has provided an explanation for the number of dissolved companies in a witness statement. He said:
"6.1 To me these words are a direct, intentional and serious attack upon my professional and personal integrity and would have been understood as such by readers.
6.2 In making the written accusations about my business competence it seems to me that Clive Hughes does not understand the dynamics of running a successful management consultancy. Contrary to what he has written, the aims and objective of the 15 dissolved companies was never to grow them and sell them at a profit. Each one was originally set up as a means of protecting the Intellectual Property and the separate products and service offerings of QP Group to our customers, for example Outsourcing Ltd. QP Group is an international management consultancy working in the procurement and supply chain industry helping "blue chip" clients make substantial savings on their expenditure on goods and services with suppliers. By way of example, in excess of 25% of FTSE 100 companies have been or are QP Group clients. By paying £150–£200 pa to Companies House as a dormant company, the QP Group had name protection to the trading rights to outsourcings in the UK. Exactly the same approach applies to the other companies, for example, QP Engineering, QP Electronic commerce, etc. The only exception to this was QP Group (France) Ltd which was an active trading small company operation (which successfully achieved its start-up objectives of being at breakeven with turnover of €1 million).
6.3 So not only has Clive Hughes misunderstood the purpose of the company creation and dissolution, he is also inaccurate in the defamatory statements that he has made that I was "not able to sell anyone of them and coming to Swansea to tell you how to do it". That is untrue and, in addition, defamatory in its implication that I am a thoroughly incompetent businessman. The business purpose was to protect the Intellectual Property, Products and Solutions of the QP Group."
The appellant has not challenged this explanation in the respondent's witness statement. The respondent had simply formed companies under names related to the name of his company in order to prevent anyone else from doing so and trying to pass off their services as those of his company. This is a normal reason for incorporating a company. The dissolution of such a company has nothing to do with the respondent's business abilities.
Circulation of the bundle
The precise number of recipients of the bundle is unclear. It is known to have been sent to some six recipients. They include the chair of a local residents' group and to two planning inspectors. Some of these recipients disclosed that they had passed the bundle to a limited number of other persons but happily it appears that the planning inspectors simply destroyed the bundle. The respondent believed that he had recently identified other recipients but he now accepts that this was not the case. No other recipient has therefore been identified since the circulation of the bundle of documents to which we have referred.
Needless to say, the statement caused distress and inconvenience to the respondent. He had to have several meetings with the recipients to satisfy them that there was no truth in the suggestion that he had acted in any way improperly. He has stated in a witness statement that others attending the planning inquiries also knew about the bundle, and this evidence has not been challenged.
Costly litigation inevitably ensues
Because the bundle was sent anonymously, the respondent had to identify the author in order to be able to prevent repetition. The appellant was identified via his handwriting on the bundle. However, he denied authorship in his response...
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