Applicants in the first attempt to strike out an alleged 'SLAPP' action under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 will have to wait for a decision, a High Court judge said yesterday.
In Kamal v Tax Policy Associates and Daniel Neidle, Mrs Justice Collins Rice reserved judgment on applications to dismiss an £8 million libel claim brought by tax barrister Setu Kamal against commentator and former magic circle partner Dan Neidle. Kamal sued over allegations in Neidle's blog about the barrister's apparent endorsement of a tax avoidance scheme.
The defendants yesterday applied for strike-out or summary judgment based on the sole statutory measure against abusive legislation, section 195 of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) 2023. Under the act, Rule 3.4 of the Civil Procedure Rules gives the court power to strike out a claim if it meets the statutory definition of a SLAPP.
In submissions to the court, Neidle's legal team described Kamal's litigation as 'well-out-of-the-norm'. The claimant's behaviour, it said, included applying an 'urgent' injunction months after publication, seeking disproportionate remedies, mislabelling of correspondence and reliance on generative AI leading to the inclusion in correspondence of 'hallucinated' cases. This has required the defendants to check every citation, the court heard.
The defendants argued that Kamal's action met all four conditions in the ECCTA's definition of a SLAPP and that the entire claim should either be struck out or summary judgment awarded in their favour.
Kamal submitted that the defendants are unlikely to succeed in statutory defences. In the light of this 'core chasm', he alleged they are 'disproportionately raising additional points in relation to peripheral matters such as the claimant's conduct'. His claim 'is not intended to cause harassment, alarm or distress, expense or any other harm or inconvenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation'.
Kamal also told the court that the defendants have a large legal team while he is a 'sole practitioner representing himself in a field new to him'.
After the hearing, Neidle's solicitor, Matthew Gill of activist group Good Law Project said he had expected a reserved judgment because of the novelty of the argument.
Greg Callus and Hannah Gilliland, instructed by the Good Law Project, appeared for Tax Policy Associates and Daniel Neidle. Setu appeared remotely for himself
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