Lewis Silkin has acted for award-winning investigative media organisation Mill Media, its founder, Joshi Herrmann, and freelance journalist, Cormac Kehoe, in the successful defence of two defamation claims brought by Italian businessman Claudio De Giovanni.
De Giovanni -v- Kehoe & Ors [2026] EWHC 1136 (KB)
The team was led by Ali Vaziri (Partner) and Anne Mannion (Senior Associate), who instructed Claire Overman of Doughty Street Chambers.
In October 2025, De Giovanni issued proceedings following the publication of an investigative piece published in The Londoner under the headline "Claudio is Scamming", which exposed his property arbitrage scheme. De Giovanni brought a County Court claim against Kehoe personally, as well as a duplicative High Court claim against all three defendants.
On 13 May 2026, Mrs Justice Steyn handed down judgment throwing out both claims. Striking out the County Court claim, the Judge ruled that it was "plainly an abuse of process." She further ruled that De Giovanni had not validly served the High Court claim, and that setting aside the claim was "properly attributable to [his] own continuing failure to serve the claim form."
The defendants had repeatedly raised concerns that De Giovanni was using legal proceedings as a means of exerting improper pressure against them to take down their reporting.
Commenting on the outcome, Anne Mannion said: