In Real Life: The ECtHR and the UK in 2024

Associated Newspapers Limited v the United Kingdom

Associated Newspapers Limited publishes the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday newspapers. The company had been made to pay the large costs that had been run up by people who had successfully sued it in privacy and/or defamation proceedings relating to articles it had published in 2017 and 2019. For one of the claimants, the company was made to also pay a "success fee", an extra legal cost that had been added on because they won the case. Associated Newspapers Limited said this was unfair and breached their right to freedom of expression (Article 10). They took their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which agreed unanimously that a breach had taken place.