The Victoria Supreme Court in Australia put the world on notice that its strict defamation laws apply to anyone, anywhere anytime for materials placed on the Internet. The Court ruled on August 28, that Joseph Gutnick can sue the world's largest financial publisher, Dow Jones, in his home town, Melbourne, over an article published in the business journal Barrons Online in October last year.
The article, entitled "Unholy Gains", described the mining magnate as a "devious businessman" who was one of the main customers of jailed US money launderer and tax evader Nucham Goldberg. Dow Jones argued that the case should be heard in the publisher's home state of New Jersey because the article was first published in New Jersey and intended for a US audience. But the Court ruled that the article was also published in Australia and could be heard there as well. Dow Jones has already announced its plans to appeal. Australian defamation laws are among the toughest in the world.
"Clearly, when you publish something on the Internet, it is accessible worldwide. In the United States, we sometimes forget that our deeply rooted views of the importance of free speech are not shared by every country "said Hughes & Luce Intellectual Property Litigation partner Ted Stevenson. "This just reiterates that not only United States law will apply to web publications of any type. Unfortunately, the Hague Conference on Jurisdiction that recently ended in June, doesn't appear to have brought us any closer to a resolution."
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