UK judges to be given powers to dismiss oppressive Slapps lawsuits at early stage | Law

Oppressive lawsuits brought by wealthy individuals to evade scrutiny and intimidate critics are to be defined in English and Welsh law for the first time, as judges are handed powers to dismiss “Slapps” at an early stage.

Amendments added to the economic crime and corporate transparency bill will bring a swift end to the vast majority of Slapps (strategic lawsuits against public participation), ministers claim.

The government has been under pressure to legislate on the issue amid concerns Slapps are being used by wealthy individuals – especially Russian oligarchs – to stifle free speech and deter investigations into their affairs by journalists, writers and campaigners.

The amendments create an early dismissal mechanism in the courts based on two tests: whether a case is a Slapp and whether the claim has a reasonable chance of being successful. The onus will be on the complainants to prove that their case has merit, rather than on the defendant.

The justice secretary, Alex Chalk, said: “These measures will protect the values of freedom of speech that underpin our democracy and help better protect reporters who are shining a light on their crimes.”

The definition of a Slapp in the bill refers to behaviour by the claimant that “has, or is intended to have, the effect of restraining the defendant’s exercise of the right to freedom of speech”. Their behaviour must also be intended to cause the defendant harassment, alarm or distress, expense or any other harm or convenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in litigation.

The new law is limited to information in the public interest related to economic crime, which at least 70% of UK Slapps relate to, according to research from the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), disappointing campaigners who want a broader application.

The UK Anti-Slapp Coalition, co-chaired by the FPC, Index on Censorship and English Pen, welcomed the amendment but said it should protect all public interest speech. It also expressed concerns that it was contingent on the intent of the claimant, which it said could be a difficult, time-consuming and costly exercise to prove.

Susan Coughtrie, the director of the FPC, said the amendments were “a crucial step towards preventing those benefiting from proceeds of crime from being able to use them to shut down scrutiny into that wrongdoing by misusing UK law. Nevertheless, this is only a partial success story – the UK government must move as quickly as possible to ensure such protections are available to all those subject to Slapps, regardless of the subject matter.”

The amendments come days after the former cabinet minister David Davis used a point of order in parliament to hail a high court judge’s decision to strike out a defamation claim brought by the Conservative party donor Mohamed Amersi against the former Tory MP Charlotte Leslie as “a great victory for free speech”. Davis called the case a Slapp, but this has been rejected by Amersi who said “nothing could be further from the truth”.

A 2020 FPC report, which surveyed investigative journalists in 41 countries working to uncover financial crime and corruption, found the UK to be by far the most frequent international country of origin for legal threats after the reporters’ home countries.