Congratulations to NGN editorial and legal team on the Depp v NGN result
Dr Robin Callender Smith
Author@ ARBITA + Honorary Professor of Media Law @ QMUL
Along with my congratulations for a clear-sighted and unflinching commitment to what was at issue, there are two further points.
Para 580 of Mr Justice Nicol's 129-page Depp v NGN judgment illustrates his careful and meticulously detailed findings against Depp. I would normally have cut/pasted this, but it wouldn't survive LinkedIn's decency filters. Instead, there is a link to the full judgment at the end. That paragraph is on the last page, before the Annexe containing the original online article.
There is also an important, pointed comment in Para 576: "....Mr Depp has not been short of legal advice. He would, I assume, have been advised as to the consequences of suing the Defendants [The Sun + Dan Wootton] against whom the claim is brought, but not Ms Heard....The consequences of doing so are that they (and not Ms Heard) are subject to the obligations of a party to make disclosure." In other words, "What's the First Rule? Make sure you have all the right parties on your Statement of Claim."