The Dekagram 6th March 2023

• Published date: 10 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Personal Injury, Libel & Defamation
• Law Firm: Deka Chambers
• Author: Giles Bedloe and William Dean

Another week, another travel alert. Having advised Brits not to travel to Turkey to undergo cheap cosmetic surgery, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has issued an advisory warning of an outbreak of shigellosis in Cape Verde. Apparently travellers returning from the Santa Maria resort on Sal have been reporting confirmed cases of the infection since August 2022. Anecdotally, we were aware of the outbreak, but the fact that it has been ongoing since last Summer does seem rather alarmingly reminiscent of the issues with cyclospora suffered by the most popular Mexican resorts from 2016 onwards. No doubt the cases arising will be filtering through soon enough. In the meantime, we have one casenote on jurisdiction and another on the approach taken by the English and Welsh courts to foreign disclosure procedure - no doubt a growth area we should all be aware of.

The limits - or otherwise - of seeking disclosure in foreign courts

Handed down on 1 March 2023, Soriano v. Forensic News L.L.C. [2023] EWCA Civ 223 was an appeal decision in a defamation case which considered an issue with far wider application than the limits of that jurisdiction. The claimant sued the defendants, one company and one individual both based in the United States, for libel and, at a previous stage of the litigation, the English courts had been held to be the correct venue. The statements said to be libellous were serious and included allegations of homicide, corruption (including in connection with the Olympic Games in 2014 and, separately, in combination with a senior Israeli politician), money laundering, embezzlement, and interference with the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

Prior to a preliminary hearing in the English High Court, the defendants had applied to the District Court of the Southern District of New York for an order against a third party bank for production of documents concerning the claimant's companies. They relied on 28 U.S.C. '1782, part of the U.S. federal code, which provided that "[t]he district court ... may order [a person] to ... produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign ... tribunal", and "[t]he order may be made ... upon the application of any interested person". The defendants, who relied inter alia on defences of truth and public interest, sought information about various financial transactions.

When the claimant discovered the U.S. application, he applied in England for an anti-suit injunction. That was dismissed at first instance, with Murray J. disagreeing with the claimant's claim that the defendants' conduct was "oppressive or vexatious or which [interfered] with the due process of the court", with reference to South Carolina Insurance Co. v. Assurantie Maatschappij "De Zeven Provincien" N.V....