Brian Dudley issued proceedings against Michael Phillips for defamation and breach of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679/EU) in relation to internet postings published by Mr Phillips. Mr Dudley complained that Mr Phillips had falsely accused him of fraud, financial incompetence and various forms of wrongdoing of a sexual nature.

Mr Phillips was a litigant in person. He did not respond adequately to the proceedings against him, despite assistance from the court, and judgment in default was therefore granted to Mr Dudley. Consequently, the trial concerned remedies and relief only.

Mr Dudley was an investment and wealth management expert, who ran his own business, Premier Global Consulting Limited. He was born in the UK and had lived and worked here. He also had extensive professional experience in the Philippines and Singapore, where he now lives, having relocated from the UK in late 2021.

Mr Phillips was a former employee of a company called PI Global Inc of which Mr Dudley was a director. Mr Dudley had recruited Mr Phillips to work at PI Global. In 2015, Mr Phillips was dismissed from his role managing clients in the Philippines and Thailand. Mr Phillips was resident in the UK since 2016.

Mr Dudley’s claims were:

1. a libel claim in respect of defamatory “reviews” posted by Mr Phillips on the website “pissedconsumer.com”, which remained accessible and live (the Reviews); and
2. a claim in data protection in respect of the (now removed) website operated by Mr Phillips at www. briandudleyisascammer.wordpress.com (the WordPress Site).

The Reviews made defamatory allegations about Mr Dudley, including of professional incompetence, dishonesty and fraud. The WordPress Site, before its removal on 8 January 2021 (at Mr Dudley’s instigation), contained Mr Dudley’s personal data in the form of various damaging and unpleasant allegations, which included statements that he had sold fraudulent Ponzi scheme investments, and allegations concerning alleged infidelity and sexual activity with sex workers.

Mr Dudley sought: (i) damages for libel, and compensation for breach of his rights under the 1998 Act and the GDPR as a result of publication of inaccurate personal data by Mr Phillips; (ii) an injunction; and (iii) an order under s 13 of the Defamation Act 2013 in relation to “pissedconsumer.com”.

Mr Justice Saini noted that the Particulars of Claim were the basis on which the court had to identify the nature and scope of Mr Phillips’ liability in defamation to Mr Dudley given that judgment in default had already been entered. The same principles applied to the data protection claim.

Saini J also noted that the right to recover financial relief for breach of the 1998 Act is contained in s 13 and, for breach of the GDPR, in Article 82. In Aven v Orbis Business Intelligence [2020] EWHC 1812 (QB), the court said that: (i) “Damage” for the purposes of s 13 is not confined to material loss; compensation for distress is recoverable in any case, as is damage for reputational harm; and (ii) the court’s approach to the assessment of reputation harm and distress resulting from inaccurate disclosures of personal data follows the established principles developed in the common law of defamation.

Mr Dudley had limited the value of all his claims to £10,000, despite knowing that if successful the quantum of damages would, in fact, exceed that amount. He sought a combined award in respect of the libel and data protection claims for damage to reputation/distress only.

Saini J noted that where the assessment of damages in libel follows default judgment, the award should be based on the claimant’s pleaded meanings, unless they were “wildly extravagant or impossible, or that the words were clearly not defamatory in their tendency” (Sloutsker v Romanova [2015] EWHC 2053 (QB)). Saini J adopted the same approach when considering the “meanings” for the purposes of the data protection claim. He said that the court had to consider the natural and ordinary meaning of the data by applying the rules on meaning under the law of defamation.

Mr Dudley’s pleaded meanings of the Reviews were that: (i) Mr Dudley is an incompetent financial advisor who had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds of client money through the sale of sham investments, and who had lied on his CV in order to cover this up; and (ii)(a) Mr Dudley is an incompetent financial advisor who has lost his clients’ money and who should be banned from working in the financial services industry; and (b) that there were grounds to suspect Mr Dudley of involvement in a conspiracy to defraud. In Saini J’s view these meanings were plainly reasonable, non-extravagant, and “grave”.

As for the data protection claims relating to the WordPress Site, Mr Dudley identified the inaccurate meaning contended for and stated why the data was inaccurate. For example, he said that the statements that he was guilty of fraud and had defrauded Mr Phillips of his entire life savings was inaccurate. Again, Saini J found that these allegations were grave. In Saini J’s view, fraud was one of the most serious allegations which could be made against a professional person in Mr Dudley’s position as a financial professional.

As for extent of publication, since Mr Phillips had not engaged with the proceedings, there was no information as to the size of readership of his publications. However, Saini J said this was a case where he could safely infer substantial publication in both causes of action. Both the Reviews and the WordPress Site had been published to specific people known to Mr Dudley and it could be inferred that others, unknown to Mr Dudley, would also have seen them. Further, the Reviews were accessible on a Google Search, via a “reviews” site used by potential clients and colleagues when deciding whether to employ Mr Dudley. Saini J inferred, therefore, that publication had been wider than the individuals known to Mr Dudley and was probably in the low hundreds. Although not a high figure, it was a particularly sensitive constituency of people who knew or worked with Mr Dudley.

Saini J accepted that publication of the Reviews had been an acute source of embarrassment and distress to Mr Dudley. Further, he accepted that the publications had caused Mr Dudley actual, serious reputational harm. For example, there was evidence that it had caused him to lose a lucrative job offer.

But for the cap placed on damages sought, Saini J said that damages would have been in the range of £30,000 to £40,000. Accordingly, he awarded the £10,000 damages requested to cover both the libel and data protection claims.

Saini J also awarded the injunction sought. He said that on the evidence of Mr Phillips’ continuing publication of the Reviews and his conduct during the litigation, it was necessary and appropriate to restrain him from further publishing the libels or further processing Mr Dudley’s personal data. The fact that Mr Dudley had independently succeeded in securing the removal of the WordPress Site was no reason to refuse an injunction in respect of the data protection claim.

Finally, Saini J granted a s 13 order, under which Consumer Opinion LLC, the operator of the site at pissedconsumer.com, was ordered to remove the Reviews. (Brian Dudley v Michael Phillips [2022] EWHC 930 (QB) (14 April 2022) — to read the judgment in full, click here).