The Anti-SLAPP Coalition has described as “baffling” a regulator’s decision to take no further action on a spurious libel claim brought by the late Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Prigozhin, a one-time ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin and leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, brought a libel case against Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins in December 2021 after Higgins tweeted about Prigozhin’s connections to Wagner.
Although the case was struck out in the High Court in May 2022, Higgins says he spent an unrecoverable sum of £70,000 defending himself against the legal attack. Prigozhin admitted he founded the Wagner Group in August 2022.
Higgins complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) in 2022 that the law firm which took Prigozhin’s case on, Discreet Law, had broken industry rules by helping the warlord to pursue a strategic lawsuit against participation (SLAPP) — a vexatious claim brought to punish or silence someone. (Prigozhin had been subject to international sanctions at the time the claim was brought, and Open Democracy revealed in 2023 that Discreet Law had successfully applied to the UK government for licenses to facilitate the legal action in spite of those sanctions.)
According to Democracy for Sale, the Substack newsletter run by former Open Democracy editor Peter Geoghegan, the SRA only responded to Higgins in March 2024, nearly two years after the original complaint was made. When it did eventually write back, the regulator said it found “no evidence” that Discreet Law — which folded in December 2023 — knew Prigozhin ran the Wagner Group and that the firm had instead gone above its due diligence requirements.
An appeal of the decision was unsuccessful, with the SRA in August telling Higgins’ legal representatives, McCue Jury & Partners, that Discreet Law “acted appropriately” and that “whilst there was public speculation surrounding Mr Prigozhin’s connection with the Wagner Group, there was no evidence to suggest the Firm should have been aware that his instructions in this respect were false”.
Solicitors Regulation Authority decision throws into doubt its ‘role to hold those enabling SLAPPs to account’
The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition called the decision “extremely disappointing”, saying it “casts a shadow over the regulator’s role to hold those enabling SLAPPs to account”.
“Prigozhin’s lawyers helped a sanctioned warlord target an individual journalist for a series of tweets linking to reports, while notably not challenging the better-resourced media outlets…
“While Prigozhin denied his link to the Wagner Group at the time, he was already sanctioned by the UK Government, as well as by the US and EU, and as such Discreet Law had to seek special exemption to receive payment to represent him.
“The red flags were there, and how the SRA can conclude that the law firm satisfied itself of the merits of their client’s case, when the truth was in fact the opposite, is baffling.
“We are seriously concerned that the closure of this case will result in a loss of confidence in the regulator and fewer people experiencing SLAPPs coming forward to complain.”
Higgins himself said it was “difficult to imagine a clearer example of a SLAPP, so to be told by the SRA Prigozhin’s lawyers are in the clear suggests to me that current legislation around SLAPP cases are insufficient and new legislation is required”.
Asked to respond to the Anti-SLAPP Coalition comments, a spokesperson for the SRA said: “We take allegations that solicitors have engaged in SLAPPs or abused the litigation process very seriously.
“We looked at all the available information and decided to close the matter with no further action. If further information is made available, we can look again at the issues. Our investigation took some time due to the complexity of this matter and the need to make sure we thoroughly investigated all the issues raised.”
In November a House of Lords inquiry into the future of the news industry criticised the government for “failing to prioritise” action on SLAPPs, arguing there had been a lack of “political will” on the issue.
The last Conservative government wrote protections against SLAPPs relating to economic crime into the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, but a Private Member’s Bill which would have introduced wider protections was not passed by the time the 2024 general election was called.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised in October that his government would “tackle the use of SLAPPs to protect investigative journalism”, but the following month Justice Minister Heidi Alexander ruled out introducing such a bill in the current parliamentary session.
[Read more: Lords slam government inaction on SLAPPs, calling for action by summer]
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