UK advertising tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell told the High Court yesterday how former colleagues sought to undermine his reputation through a "vengeful and vindictive" internet campaign.
Sir Martin, chief executive of services and marketing group WPP, is suing Marco Benatti, Marco Tinelli and Italian media company, FullSix, for libel and breach of privacy.
He has accused them of disseminating blogs containing a "host of libels", a "vicious" image of himself and female executive Daniela Weber, chief operating officer of WPP Italy, and of labelling them "the mad dwarf and the nympho schizo".
Sir Martin's counsel, Desmond Browne QC, told Mr Justice Eady in London that the blogs alleged repeated criminal activity and a career built on money laundering and attacked every aspect of 62-year-old Sir Martin's character.
"We say these go to the very heart of the plaintiff's integrity and professional reputation and therefore merit an award at the top end of the scale for libel awards." He added: "Although he and we know the allegations were completely untrue, they remain damaging in an industry as small as advertising."
Sir Martin had also had to tell his three sons of the libels before they heard them from others, the court was told.
Giving evidence, Sir Martin said: "It is difficult in open court, and maybe there will be an opportunity in private, to discuss my reaction to the JPEG [ image] in particular, but I can't conceive of any way that anybody could have sought to undermine my professional and personal reputation in a more vengeful and vindictive way.
"I can't conceive of it getting much worse than this."
He said that, since January 2006, he had asked the defendants to show "transparency, trust and openness".
He branded a defence concession, last month, that someone in FullSix - not Mr Benatti or Mr Tinelli - might have been involved in the dissemination of the JPEG e-mail and the libellous blogs last March as "weasel words" in a bid to get off the hook.
Mr Browne has told the judge, who is hearing the fiercely contested case without a jury, that there was "overwhelming forensic evidence" against Mr Benatti, FullSix's founder and his "lieutenant", chief executive Mr Tinelli.
Mr Browne has said that the case flowed from the aftermath of a broken friendship between Mr Benatti and Ms Weberand the consequences of Sir Martin's termination of Mr Benatti's consultancy as the country manager for WPP in Italy.
In March 2006, it is claimed, Mr Benatti's Italian lawyer rang WPP's lawyer and told him that Mr Benatti would be devoting the next few years to destroying Sir Martin and WPP and it had now become a personal battle.
Mr Browne said: "Mr Benatti and Mr Tinelli had both the motive and the opportunity. That is admitted although what followed is not.
"We say that they also had the requisite knowledge - both knew of the contents of the blog which would be necessary for its authorship and in the case of Tinelli, knowledge of of the requisite IT skills to cover up those who were responsible for it.
"Nothing has come to light to suggest that there are any other possible suspects and, gradually, analysis of the forensic evidence has filled in the jigsaw."
The defendants deny libel and breach of privacy. They do not seek to justify the libels but deny that they were responsible for their dissemination or of the privacy-infringing e-mails.
