Nigel Tait

Media Litigation & Commercial Litigation

Nigel is the Managing Partner at Carter-Ruck.  He is also the head of the  Media Department.  His main area of practice is media law, acting mainly for claimants. Cases of interest include Beta Construction -v- Channel 4 (award of £568,000 - highest ever libel award paid to a company); Telnikoff -v- Matusevitch (first libel case to go to the House of Lords for over a decade - award of £240,000); acted for successful party (PJS) in PJS -v- News Group Newspapers (first case in which Supreme Court has given Judgement on an interim application restraining a breach of privacy); Jack Slipper -v- BBC (£50,000 damages - leading case on liability for republication); X -v- Y (settlement of £200,000 plus costs); Jonathan Hunt (aged 6) -v- The Sun (settlement of £35,000 plus costs to mother and son - youngest ever libel plaintiff); Farargay -v- Al Hayat (award of £170,000 plus costs); Scholar -v- Mail (award of £100,000 plus costs); Gorman -v- Mudd (award of £150,000 plus costs); Morelli -v- Sunday Times (award of £45,000 plus costs - first conditional fee libel action to go to trial); Kirby Harris -v- Baxter (leading case on trial by jury); Victor Kiam -v- Sunday Times (£45,000 plus costs - upheld by the Court of Appeal); Shah -v- Standard Chartered Bank (leading case on reasonable grounds to suspect); Kiam -v- The Mirror (award of £105,000 plus costs - upheld by the Court of Appeal); Walker -v- Newcastle Chronicle (settlement of £100,000 plus costs); Rahamim -v- Channel 4 and Ors (Settlement of £175,000 plus costs and broadcast apology on Channel 4 news); X -v- Sunday Sport (injunction to restrain publication obtained within two hours of receiving instructions); Y -v- Sunday Sport and Anor (injunction in the new tort of privacy resulting in the pulping of 40,000 copies of a magazine); Rahamim -v- Dennis Publishing (settlement of £30,000 plus costs during first “offer of amends” trial). Acted for Sir Elton John against the Sunday Times, Mirror and Mail (who apologised to Sir Elton and paid £100,000 in damages plus costs). Acted for City banker Piotr Tymula in his successful defence of a libel action brought by former colleague Svetlana Lokhova. Nigel has obtained numerous injunctions preventing breaches of privacy and has spoken at the Oxford Union Debating Society on three occasions on the reform of libel and privacy laws.

Nottingham University (1985 BA Hons).