Libel tourism

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Libel tourism refers to the practice of intimidating writers or commentators and their publishers by filing libel suits against them in countries with plaintiff-friendly libel laws, notably the United Kingdom. Noteworthy cases have been of wealthy Saudis suing or threatening to sue American publishers of American writers in British courts ^[1].

United States law favors freedom of speech. The United States Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that public figures who sue media defendants must demonstrate that defamatory statements were "made with actual malice." Outside of the United States, truth is not a defense against allegations of defamation.

As an example, Saudi Billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz has sued or threatened suit in the UK 33 times against those who linked him to terrorism. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post have settled with him, and he has a Web site boasting of his victories According to a Boston Globe editorial, "Bin Mahfouz and fellow libel tourists have made the English libel bar rich, leading the London Times to declare the United Kingdom the 'libel capital of the Western world.' ... This trend has produced a succession of rulings, settlements, and damage awards against English and American media defendants costing millions of pounds"^[2]. Though the phenomenon is most closely identified with Saudis, it is not limited to them. A Russian businessman successfully sued Forbes magazine, not in its home country the United States, but in London's High Court. And in 2002, George W. Bush advisor Richard Perle threatened to sue investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in London, because of a series of critical articles Hersh had written about him. ^[3]