INTERVIEW: Paul Tweed:Why do so many high-profile celebrities seek out a soft-spoken Belfast solicitor to protect their reputations from defamation? Because Paul Tweed has never lost a libel case
HE HAS represented everyone from Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears to Seán Dunne and a number of senior Irish politicians, and has taken libel cases against publications ranging from The National Enquirer to Forbes Magazine.
He has been name-checked in US Congress, has never lost a libel case, and gets invited to red-carpet events, but Paul Tweed remains a soft-spoken, amiable Belfast man and insists he isn’t an enemy of free speech.
So how does a solicitor from Northern Ireland wind up as the libel lawyer of choice for Hollywood A-listers?
Tweed joined Belfast law firm Johnsons in the late 1970s and developed the business’s insurance work. Gradually he took on a number of defamation cases, but his big break came in the late 1990s when he represented Liam Neeson, who sued several newspapers for running false stories about his marriage.
Tweed says it was a “fairly difficult battle,” but they were successful in the end. He then began attracting stars such as Britney, J Lo, Harrison Ford and Nicolas Cage to his client list.
In the US, successfully suing for libel is an extremely difficult task because of the constitution’s First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech. Essentially, the plaintiff must prove that the publication acted out of malice.
However, if a celebrity is libelled by a newspaper or magazine that appears on European news-stands, they can take action against that media outlet in the relevant European jurisdiction, with a greater chance of success than in the US.
Johnsons Solicitors runs offices in Belfast, Dublin and London, which allows Tweed to employ this strategy in three jurisdictions. This means that the offending publication is faced with the threat of three sets of legal costs and damages.
But surely the judiciary in, say, Dublin is none too thrilled to see their already busy schedules being burdened by celebrity plaintiffs who live on an entirely different continent?
He says it’s by no means straightforward, but if the newspaper or magazine earns a commercial revenue in the particular jurisdiction, and if the plaintiff has a reputation there, then the court will be satisfied that the case can be heard there. In any event, 95 per cent of Tweed’s cases are settled out of court, so he’s not exactly clogging up the system.
But what about the tension between press freedom and privacy rights?
For example, in the Republic it’s not unheard of for wealthy individuals to use their financial clout to deter journalists from writing about them, threatening to sue journalists personally if they dare report anything unflattering. How does Tweed feel about that?
“My stance is dead simple,” he says. “Genuine investigative journalism has to be protected at all costs . . . Cases where the law is used to intimidate journalists should be discouraged at all costs, whatever needs to be done to do that. Investigative journalism is what makes newspapers tick, but also protects us all.”
He insists he’s not some sort of “maverick” who’s got an anti-press agenda. His firm has acted for publishing houses, newspapers and a surprising number of journalists.
In fact, while his high-profile clients garner the most attention, the largest group of plaintiffs he represents is “not celebrities, not property developers, not former bankers”, but journalists.
He has represented and continues to act for many senior journalists with leading newspapers, taking cases against other newspapers who have written about them, or against the National Union of Journalists. A number are also “getting hit” by online harassment.
While Tweed doesn’t condone using the law to deter genuine investigative journalism, he believes the press misbehaves in terms of how it treats ordinary individuals.
“To get access to justice for the ordinary man on the street is virtually impossible,” he says. “The press control the platform for free speech. They decide who gets free speech. It’s not this utopia that Americans try to claim they have,” he says. “If the ordinary man on the street is libelled on the front page of a newspaper, the best he can hope for is a postage stamp-sized apology or a rambling Press Ombudsman finding . . . that no one reads.”
He believes anything short of regulation is a waste of time. “I would have no problem going to an independent state body instead of issuing expensive libel proceedings.”
In relation to the recent Prince Harry furore, where The Sun ran photos of the young royal naked in a Las Vegas hotel, he says the tabloid was motivated purely by commercial interest, rather than public interest, and dismisses the justification that the photos were widely available on the internet. “You can get hardcore porn on the internet. That doesn’t mean you publish it.”
“Okay, it was foolish . . . but he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. It was a total breach of privacy. With his case, and Max Mosley’s case, the subject matter might be questionable, so the papers will have taken the view he’s not going to sue.” He says the principles that these types of high-profile cases establish are just as important for the ordinary man on Grafton Street.
“If you’re having a glass of wine, and somebody is recording you on an iPhone, you should have an expectation of privacy and confidentiality.”
Based on the cases landing on Tweed’s desk right now, he believes this whole area – the intrusion of privacy through the use of camera phones, social media etc – is going to be the battleground of 2013.