Australian businessman Joseph Gutnick received an apology, read out to him in court by lawyers for his opponent, the US publishing group Dow Jones & Company. Gutnick will also receive a payment of $180,000 and $400,000 in legal expenses, according to ABC News Online.
The case centred on an article posted onto the Barron's Online magazine, which is published by Dow Jones. Gutnick claimed the article, published in October 2000, defamed him, and he sued Dow Jones in Victoria, where his business is headquartered. He argued that the case should be heard in Australia, because he was only interested to re-establish his allegedly damaged reputation there.
Dow Jones denied the defamation – saying Gutnick had misinterpreted the article; but it also argued that Australian courts did not have jurisdiction in the case. The publisher claimed that the article was published in the US, where the company and its web servers are located and where most of its target readership resides – and therefore any case should be heard there.
The publisher claimed that the establishment of jurisdiction where internet material is downloaded would unreasonably expose web publishers to defamation suits all over the world and therefore restrict freedom of speech.
After its arguments were rejected by two lower Australian Courts, Dow Jones appealed to the country's High Court, only to lose the case in December 2002.
The jurisdiction issue concluded, the only remaining question was whether there had been defamation. This question was referred back to the Victoria Supreme Court. It is this element of the case that has now settled.
According to ABC News Online, Mr Gutnick welcomed the settlement. "It's taken four years for them to do it but I felt when that accusation was made that I had to fight it to the end, which I did," he said.
In a recent Letter from the Editor, Barron's Richard Rescigno wrote: "The 53 nations of the British Commonwealth have libel laws that, by US standards, are archaic and onerous."
The letter, which anticipates but pre-dates the settlement, continued:
"This ruling's potential chilling effect on anyone engaged in investigative journalism - be it of stock scams, government misdeeds or even terrorism - is clear. Already, a judge in Canada, another British Commonwealth nation, has cited the Gutnick decision in allowing a plaintiff to sue the Washington Post for defamation, even though the article at issue was published years before that person resided in Canada."
Rescigno called for "rational international accord" on the jurisdiction issue.