Thursday, October 15, 2009

MP to report Carter-Ruck to Law Society over attempt to gag Guardian.

I've written before about Trafigura, the oil trading company which got into trouble when it dumped toxic waste around Abidjan on the Ivory Coast, which resulted in tens of thousands of people seeking hospital treatment.

So far, so scandalous. Well, they have gone even further. They have now attempted to prevent The Guardian from reporting events taking place in parliament, where those events included discussions of just what Trafigura had been up to.

An unprecedented attempt by a British oil trading firm to prevent the Guardian reporting parliamentary proceedings has collapsed following a spontaneous online campaign to spread the information the paper had been barred from publishing.

Carter-Ruck, the law firm representing Trafigura, was accused of infringing the supremacy of parliament after it insisted that an injunction obtained against the Guardian prevented the paper from reporting a question tabled on Monday by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly.

Farrelly's question was about the implications for press freedom of an order obtained by Trafigura preventing the Guardian and other media from publishing the contents of a report related to the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast.

In today's edition, the Guardian was prevented from identifying Farrelly, reporting the nature of his question, where the question could be found, which company had sought the gag, or even which order was constraining its coverage.

But overnight numerous users of the social networking site Twitter posted details of Farrelly's question and by this morning the full text had been published on two prominent blogs as well as in the magazine Private Eye.

Carter-Ruck withdrew its gagging attempt by lunchtime, shortly before a 2pm high court hearing at which the Guardian was about to challenge its stance, with the backing of other national newspapers.

Now an MP is going to report the firm which represented Trafigura to the law society for this scandalous attempt to deny the public the right to know what is happening in parliament.

"I will be seeking their advice on whether it is proper for any lawyer to purport or intend to inhibit the reporting of parliament," Bottomley told the Guardian.

"It is the job of the press to make aware to all what is known by a few. Any court action which inhibits that should be approved at a very high level, with full justifications, and in normal circumstances, should not be made in secret."

Carter-Ruck was accused of infringing the supremacy of parliament yesterday after it insisted that an injunction obtained against the Guardian prevented the paper from reporting a question tabled on Monday by the Labour MP Paul Farrelly.

Farrelly's question was about the implications for press freedom of an order obtained by Trafigura preventing the Guardian and other media from publishing the contents of a report related to the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast.

The behaviour of this firm and their lawyers really is beyond belief. Three months ago I had never heard of Trafigura. The story of the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast was enough to make the name synonymous in my mind with corporate cruelty, but, by trying to ensure that newspapers couldn't even report on parliamentary questions relating to their activities, they have put themselves into a new league of corporate baddies.

And this story only came to light because of the power of Twitter.

Alan Rusbridger:

It took one tweet on Monday evening as I left the office to light the virtual touchpaper. At five past nine I tapped: "Now Guardian prevented from reporting parliament for unreportable reasons. Did John Wilkes live in vain?" Twitter's detractors are used to sneering that nothing of value can be said in 140 characters. My 104 characters did just fine.

By the time I got home, after stopping off for a meal with friends, the Twittersphere had gone into meltdown. Twitterers had sleuthed down Farrelly's question, published the relevant links and were now seriously on the case. By midday on Tuesday "Trafigura" was one of the most searched terms in Europe, helped along by re-tweets by Stephen Fry and his 830,000-odd followers.

Many tweeters were just registering support or outrage. Others were beavering away to see if they could find suppressed information on the far reaches of the web. One or two legal experts uncovered the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840, wondering if that would help? Common #hashtags were quickly developed, making the material easily discoverable.

By lunchtime – an hour before we were due in court – Trafigura threw in the towel.

As Rusbridger says, they will one day teach Trafigura in business schools, but not for the reasons he imagines.

I think they will one day teach about them as a perfect example of what a firm shouldn't do.

They started this tale as an almost anonymous trading company with a PR problem concerning toxic waste on the Ivory Coast. They are ending this tale as the company who tried to prevent the media from reporting what is happening in parliament.

They have gone from obscurity to infamy in a few short months. That's quite a journey.

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