Hello! claims victory in photos battle

Hello! Magazine today claimed victory in its epic court battle over unauthorised pictures of the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas.

The Court of Appeal allowed its challenge to a High Court order that it should pay more than £1m (€1.5m) damages and another £1m in legal costs to rival magazine OK!, which had an exclusive £1mn contract with the Hollywood couple to cover their New York wedding.

Hello!’s appeal against the ruling in favour of the Hollywood couple – who received damages over privacy and breach of commercial confidence – was dismissed.

But the appeal judges threw out the couple’s claim for more damages and OK!’s cross appeal based on unlawful interference with trade.

Chris Hutchings, solicitor for Hello!, said after the judgment was handed down that the ruling meant that his magazine’s liability to OK! was now nil.

He added: “Catherine Zeta Jones famously said in her evidence that £1 million was not very much money to her.

“To fork out three times that amount (in legal costs) to recover less than £15,000 defies all logic. This is a case that should never have come to court.”

But a statement issued by Northern and Shell, publishers of OK!, said the appeal court had “fully vindicated” the Douglases action against Hello!

“This decision will impact all publishers with exclusive rights as it means rivals will be free to run spoilers with no redress in law.

“OK! will therefore be appealing this judgment to the House of Lords.”

Hello! had admitted at a Court of Appeal hearing last December that the snatched pictures were published as a “spoiler” to lessen the impact of OK!’s contract with the Douglases to cover the wedding ceremony in November 2000.

James Price QC, representing Hello!, told three judges headed by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, that “spoilers” were a well-known tactic in the newspaper and magazine industry and his clients had been victims in the past.

The ruling against Hello! came after a six-week High Court hearing in 2003 at which the actress told how she felt “devastated, shocked and appalled” when she realised unauthorised photographers had gatecrashed her wedding at the Plaza Hotel.

Freelance paparazzo Rupert Thorpe, son of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, managed to evade the massive security cordon guarding the wedding hotel and surreptitiously took photos of the groom and bride, her dress and the cake.

Eduardo Sanchez Junco, Hello!’s editor in chief and the proprietor of Hello!’s Spanish parent company Hola SA, bought the rights to publish these photos in the UK, France and Spain from Philip Ramey, another paparazzo and photographic agent based in the US.

Two days later, learning that Hello! was about to publish the unauthorised photos, OK! obtained a High Court injunction to restrain publication.

But a few days later, the Court of Appeal discharged the injunction and Hello! proceeded to publish six of the unauthorised photos.

The 13 claims at the original trial included breach of confidence, invasion of privacy (the Douglases alone), breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), intention to damage and conspiracy to injure.

The Douglases and OK! succeeded against Hello! only for breach of confidence, breach of the DPA and an injunction to prevent further publication of the unauthorised photos.

Lord Phillips, giving the ruling of the appeal court, said the objection to the Hello! photos was not only that they convey secret information or unflattering impressions, they disclose information which is private.

But he said that when an individual authorises pictures to be taken on a private occasion and then makes them public, the potential for distress at the publication of unauthorised photographs was reduced and this should be reflected in any amount of damages.

Lord Phillips said that this did not provide a defence to a claim brought under the law of confidence.

He said the appeal court had recognised that the Douglases did have a right of privacy or confidentiality in the details of their wedding which were not portrayed by the official photographs.

“It was the Douglases, not OK!, who had the right to protect this area of privacy or confidentiality.”

He said this was why the appeal court had reached the conclusion that the High Court judge was wrong to hold that OK! had any right to commercial confidence.