Award

Gould v Evolve Media (IMPRESS scheme)

IMPRESS · Press · England and Wales · May 2018

Why it matters

Shows the scheme delivering a remedy a claimant often wants more than money: a forced public apology and retraction on the same platforms that carried the article, alongside modest damages.

Summary

This is a press-arbitration decision under the IMPRESS scheme, Jonny Gould (Claimant) v Evolve Media Limited (Respondent), dated May 2018. The scheme offers a low-cost alternative to a libel action in the High Court, letting a complaint against a regulated publisher be decided by an arbitrator appointed through CIArb. The full award, with its findings and any remedy, is set out in the original, linked here.

The detail

Parties: Jonny Gould (Claimant) v Evolve Media Limited (Respondent)

Case number: IMPRESS Arbitration Scheme Case No. 132130205

Outcome: Defamation upheld: £900 damages plus a full published apology and retraction on the website and Twitter.

Quantum: £900

Applicable law: Arbitration Act 1996; English defamation law; the CIArb/IMPRESS arbitration scheme rules.

Issues in play: An individual's reputation against a publisher's article, with the remedy weighed for proportionality, again through the IMPRESS scheme rather than the courts.

Read the full decision at IMPRESS

Locus Standi links to the source decision and publishes its own plain-language summary. It does not reproduce the text of the award.

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