An award of £25,000 damages for libel against a newspaper for a review by their restaurant critic was overturned by the Court of Appeal in Belfast this week.
The court ordered a retrial as they said the jury had been misdirected, with confusion between fact and comment in the article in the Irish News, which criticised the food, drink, staff and smoky atmosphere at Goodfellas restaurant.
This decision is seen as good news, not just for restaurant critics but other reviewers as well.
About Giles
Giles is the founder and managing director of ContractStore. It was his idea to set up a company selling documents online and he has played a major part in the company's development.
He is an English solicitor, with over thirty years' experience of drafting and negotiating commercial and construction contracts in the UK and overseas. He has long been convinced that there is a quicker and simpler approach to the delivery and supply of most contracts, and he is an active proponent of the use of plain English in legal documents. He specialises in the drafting of construction and engineering contracts and as well as contributing contracts to the ContractStore website, he is co-author of the JCT Constructing Excellence Contract publiushed in 2007 (and its predecessor, the Be Collaborative Contract, which is available online from ContractStore).
