A judge from the High Court is seeking further evidence to establish whether the defamation case brought forth by Declan Ganley, a Galway businessman, and his American telecommunications company, Rivada, should be heard in the US or Ireland. The parties are accusing the global news outlet CNN of defamation. CNN recently urged the High Court to declare the US as the suitable location for the case hearing due to Rivada’s American roots and the case bearing no relevance to Ireland. However, Mr Ganley disputed this and insisted that the case should stay in Ireland.
On last Friday, Mr. Justice Garrett Simons presided over the hearing and deduced that, given the present evidence, it was unfeasible for the court to make a comparative assessment of an alternative forum where the case could be tried. In the interests of justice, he allowed each side to present any foreign law-related evidence they wanted.
CNN, which is registered in Atlanta, is being sued over a report that alleged that the Trump administration coerced the Department of Defense to grant a sizeable contract without competition to an entity termed “Rivada” in the news report. Ganley and Rivada allege they were wrongfully defamed in the news piece, broadcasted and published online on 20th October 2020.
CNN, along with two affiliated London-based companies, Cable News International Ltd and Turner Broadcasting System Europe Ltd, are being sued by them. Their defence is that the story is substantially accurate, involves public interest, and they deny defamation. They argue that this defence is applicable in both US and Ireland.
However, Ganley and Rivada argue that a defamation claim in the US would now be barred by the statute of limitations, and claim that the Irish defamation rules are more advantageous to a plaintiff than the US counterparts. Mr. Justice Simons noted that establishing the most appropriate forum, or “forum non conveniens”, for the case hearing necessitates a comparative study with an alternative forum.
According to him, simply stating, for instance, that most witnesses pertinent to the case, which has been presented to the Irish judiciary, live abroad, was insufficient. The prerequisite was to confirm the jurisdiction of the international courts in handling the kind of lawsuit that Mr Ganley and Rivada brought to the Irish courts.
Up until now, neither CNN nor Ganley’s team had provided any concrete specialist proof regarding the authority of any US court or tribunal to handle a lawsuit initiated by an Irish national or an Ireland-based corporation.
“Assumptions can’t be made that such a lawsuit would be accepted,” he noted, “it could be valid to accept without evidence that defamation is a recognised offence under US federal law, but the details of this criminal act are not directly known to the Irish court,” he added.
He explained that it isn’t far-fetched to consider that there could be issues over process and jurisdiction which might cause problems for foreign residents looking to pursue such a claim relating to publication outside the USA.
He emphasised the necessity for justice, stating that each party should have the chance to rectify their ways to allow the court make a fully-informed verdict on the matter of the appropriate court forum.
He proceeded to provide instructions on when they should present their arguments on the case and postponed it until the following month.