High-profile tax lawyer Dan Neidle has said he is facing an £8m libel claim from a barrister. Neidle published on his Tax Policy Associates website that he has received the defamation claim from tax barrister Setu Kamal. Neidle has in turn applied to the court to have the claim struck out as a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation).
Kamal’s claim relates to a report posted in February about a tax scheme promoted by a firm called Arka Wealth which worked with Kamal. Neidle said in that report that anyone using the scheme would incur large up-front tax liabilities and that it should be closed down.
In the claim form published by Neidle, it is stated that the campaigner had alleged that Kamal engaged in unethical, unlawful or failed tax avoidance activity and that the barrister posed a risk to the public. Kamal denies all such allegations.
The claim also alleges that Neidle falsely attributed legal or regulatory failure to Kamal and directly associated his name with misconduct. Kamal said these claims were false and unsubstantiated, causing serious harm to his reputation, disruption to his practice and online abuse.
In a Linkedin post from last month, Kamal wrote: ‘Despite [Neidle’s] initial misattributions and inaccurate claims about my professional conduct, subsequent corrections lacked proper acknowledgment or apology. This oversight leaves readers in the dark, potentially misleading those who endorsed his content.’
Neidle has stated he does not intend to remove the original report but will make no further comment.
In his application to have the libel claim struck out, Neidle’s lawyer, Matthew Gill of the Good Law Project, said Kamal’s behaviour in the proceedings had been ‘intended to cause the defendants harassment, alarm, distress, expense, harm or inconvenience beyond that encountered in properly conducted litigation’.
The defendants’ costs up to and including a case and costs management conference were estimated at around £109,000. As part of the strike-out application, a further application has been made for an order for security of costs.
In a current list of named tax avoidance schemes, promoters, enablers and suppliers, published and updated by HM Revenue & Customs, Kamal is named as a person suspected to be responsible for design of different schemes.
Kamal has said HMRC’s publication, coming as it did this year shortly after he had sent a pre-action letter to the Department of Business and Trade as part of arbitration proceedings, raised concerns about ‘potential harassment’ with that claim.
