English libel law is a little odd

If I understood a recent article correctly, there are non-resident plaintiffs suing non-resident authors in British courts over books *not* published in the UK simply because libel law in this country is vastly more favourable to the plaintiff!

The obvious question is, what jurisdiction do British judges have to hear the cases? Apparently, it is because publications made overseas "may" become available in the UK either by gift or international sales.

I think one case involved a Saudi sheik (With no apparent UK connection) suing American authors over a book published solely in America as it was available on Amazon.com (NOT Amazon.co.uk). To add to that, supposedly the sheik's complaint would have been laughed out of US courts...

Posted By: Iwan Husarmi, Oct 20, 12:32:28