Joe Hockey ordered to pay majority of own legal bills in defamation battle with Fairfax
Treasurer Joe Hockey has been ordered to pay the majority of his own legal costs for his partially successful defamation action against Fairfax Media’s ‘Treasurer for Sale’ story.
The judge last month ruled the phrase ‘Treasurer for sale’ as a headline was acceptable in context with the article, but was defamatory on a poster and in tweets
Today Justice Richard White rejected Hockey’s claim for Fairfax to pay 95 per cent of his estimated $1m legal bill instead ordering the publisher to pay just 15 per cent of the costs. The judge also declined Hockey’s application for an injunction to stop Fairfax printing further stories about his donations.
Last month Hockey was awarded $200,000 in damages from Fairfax after the judge ruled Fairfax’s front page stories with the headline ‘Treasurer for Sale’ were ok, but found a poster and tweets sent from some of the publisher’s accounts using the headline had been defamatory as they lacked proper context.
This story warms my heart.
A 95/15 split? That’s Hockeynomics for you.
Nope, misread!
Fairfax coverage at this stage fails to mention that their total costs are more than double Hockey’s. Independent. Always. Joke. How can they seriously position this as some sort of victory if they have had to pay all of their own substantial costs, plus some of his and the damages. The fact they are trumpeting this as a victory demonstrates poor commercial judgement. It would be over $2m by the time you factor in staff, PR, opportunity cost etc. How many Maseratis or Aspen Ski trips does that buy?
@ Comment 4.
If you are annoyed at money being wasted, then you should be taking that up with thin skinned Joe. He actioned the court proceedings and justice took it’s course?
If Joe had not of gone to court and had taken a slightly different tack, then this could have left him looking much better, profile wise and certainly all the more richer for it. Joe’s loss. Fairfax have came away looking okay from this.
The informed electorate have long memories and can remember heaps of News Corp sensationalised front pages, which were damn right nasty.
Do you have an issue with independent, impartial journalism? From reading your article it seems that you do? Although. of course; I could be wrong?
@Worldoisf…Well $2m in modern currency equates to 400 Bishop helicopter trips.
Joe Hockey was not “ordered” to pay his own legal costs.
The only order was for Fairfax to pay 15% of Hockey’s costs!
The lesson from all of this: it was entirely inappropriate and in the end outright foolish for the federal treasurer to sue over a newspaper article.
…particularly over a newspaper article that was found to be 100% accurate and legitimate.
No one wins here. Hickey looks like a man with a glass jaw. Fairfax has editors who think they can take aim at someone.
My learned legal friends say it’s unlikely Hockey will actually get a bill from his lawyers.
Well Vortex09 if Hockey is not presented with a bill, then Fairfax will have to pay 15% of nothing. They will be pleased.
I’d like to say something about Hockey now being the equivalent of used-car. Not much resale value these days. But I’m concerned the Cigar toting reserve-treasurer’s lawyers will be champing at the bit for some new action.