David Beckham injunction preventing publication of emails undercut by foreign publications publishing details
A high court injunction blocking the publication of David Beckham’s hacked personal emails has been rendered worthless after a consortium of European media outlets published anyway, according to an article in The Guardian.
David Beckham’s lawyers expressed frustration that “stolen information”, which had been prohibited from publication by the high court, had come to light, and that it was no longer possible to keep the information confidential.
In December, the high court had accepted that emails written by Beckham and his PR advisers were stolen from a Portuguese company associated with Beckham’s spokesman, Simon Oliveira, and issued an injunction preventing the Sunday Times from publishing.
However, several media organisations, including Germany’s Der Spiegel and France’s L’Equipe published details of the cache at the weekend. British newspapers including the Sun and the Daily Mail published their own stories soon afterwards despite the injunction.
“This illustrates one of the difficulties in obtaining injunctions in a globalised, internet-based society,” said Sara Mansoori, media barrister at Matrix Chambers. “The other option is for claimants to seek injunctions in all different jurisdictions but that is not a practical way to proceed for anybody.”
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