Lawfare and UK Court System

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) on securing this debate. I chose to speak because, like many others, I have growing concern about the use of SLAPPs to silence those who try to shine a light on wrongdoing. As my right hon. Friend said, there is a growing problem of a global kleptocracy in which those with enormous wealth, who may have gained that wealth through dubious means, seek to manipulate our legal system to avoid scrutiny of how they assess their wealth and use it.

Our legal system is respected throughout the world and we are respected for fairness and justice in this country. It is designed to defend our rights and to protect ordinary citizens from being adversely affected by those who would break the law or would seek to take their rights away. It defends our need for freedom of speech and a free, independent press. We in the UK pride ourselves on the sophistication of our democratic system, our legal systems and our free press, so when we see one part of the system being used to diminish another essential part of it, in the form of a free and independent press, we undermine ourselves and the status of our country.

It is important in a democracy such as ours that we can speak truth to power and that we know what is being said and done so that we can form our own opinions. However, the increasing use of strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs—is undermining that important part of our democracy. It is concerning that one pillar of our democracy, in the form of the legal system, is being used to silence those who would expose wrongdoing.

There are too many disturbing examples of investigative journalists, for example, being silenced by those who are immensely wealthy and who have issues about the way in which they want to be held publicly accountable. They silence individuals through abusive lawsuits. Such lawsuits threaten huge damages and constantly require responses for disclosures, which, in turn, saps the resources of organisations or individuals who are subject to those abusive lawsuits.

This is not just about journalists, whistleblowers, activists, academics and non-governmental organisations. More disturbingly, even our regulatory bodies are not exempt and individuals in those regulatory bodies are targeted in order to silence them. If the organisations and bodies that are set up by the legislation that we pass in this House through our democratic processes are allowed to be undermined by the imposition of SLAPPs on individuals who are carrying out their duty in those organisations, our democracy itself is undermined.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden went into detail about the case of the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, which raised legal action not just against the Serious Fraud Office that was investigating its activities, but against the individuals who worked there. If individuals feel as though they are exposing themselves to that type of action by carrying out their duty, they are bound to think twice about whether they should do so. As he said earlier, the investigation has gone on since 2013 and has not even reached the courts, but ENRC has issued several SLAPPs to silence and stop that investigation. We cannot allow that to go on.

I listened closely to the speech of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), for whom I have enormous respect. Despite what he said, however, it seems that a significant number of firms in the law profession turn up to defend organisations and individuals who are using SLAPPs. I fully understand the taxi ranking system—I operated it for many years—and I also understand the concept of brooming, which other hon. Members may not, but I bet they have all experienced it. It is the sound of a vehicle’s accelerator being pressed when somebody does not want the job and they broom off. I am sure that it also exists in the legal profession, because a number of individuals seem to turn up in these law suits, which cannot be coincidental. There is clearly something in the legal profession that needs to be examined.

We have to accept that there is a problem and I suggest that two areas need to be examined. First, we must accept that London is becoming a centre for laundering dirty money. The Prime Minister, through one of his spokespeople, has claimed that London has some of the strongest control systems in the world, but that does not explain the criticism of the regulatory regime. The Financial Times said:

“Becoming a money laundering centre is an inevitable risk of being a global financial centre. But UK authorities have for too long been reluctant to adopt or enforce tougher safeguards against dirty money for fear of harming Britain’s image as an easy place to do business.”

I would say that becoming the international centre for dirty money is far more damaging to Britain’s image as a place to do business than exposing the activities that are taking place. More harm will come to Britain as a consequence of doing nothing or delaying action. What does that say about post-Brexit global Britain? Surely part of making Brexit work must be setting the highest standards here in Britain. After all, we have had that reputation for many generations and we should defend it even more vigorously now that we are global Britain on our own after Brexit. We have to act.

I do not want to demand that SLAPPs are introduced that might end up defending huge media corporations that took away or abused the freedoms of individuals through the hacking scandal. To create a system that would contain a loophole for those organisations would be a huge mistake, but neither do we want to enable our legal and financial systems to be abused by criminals who want to buy influence through political donations and silence those who would expose their illegal activities through the use of such abusive legal actions. The Government need to review the issue of SLAPPs and think about regulating in that area without delay. We should also take action to protect individuals who work for agencies that should be investigating such cases—particularly those who may be threatened with legal action.

I wanted to contribute to this debate to demonstrate to the Government the most important thing of all: the growing concern about the use and abuse of SLAPPs by extremely wealthy and powerful people who may have obtained their wealth by dubious means. That voice is growing and the time for action is now.