Carter-Ruck

Nigel Tait

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.

Adam Tudor

Partner specialising in media and reputation management as well as commercial dispute resolution. Noteworthy cases include: representing Kate and Gerry McCann – securing for them an unprecedented four front-page apologies from national newspapers together with damages of £550,000; representing numerous individuals falsely linked with terrorist plots (obtaining numerous broadcast and printed apologies and damages totalling over £700,000); representing Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) in numerous successful libel complaints. Other clients include various national governments and heads of state, political figures and multinational corporations.

Mathilde Groppo

Mathilde is a Senior Associate in the Media Litigation group. Her practice encompasses all aspects of Media law. As part of her defamation and reputation management practice, Mathilde advises both claimants and defendants, individuals, charities and corporations, often acting against multiple defendants. She has been the lead associate in a number of recent media cases, and assisted on various successful injunctions. She is highlighted as a Rising Star in the Legal 500. She represents clients both at the pre-publication stage and after publication, obtaining injunctions, corrections and apologies, as well as statements in open court and statements summarising judgments and orders. In her recent cases, she has obtained the publication of various apologies and corrections, and several payments of 5 figure and 6 figure damages for her clients. Mathilde has also successfully obtained interim injunctions which were converted into permanent undertakings to the Court and into a permanent injunction following an application for summary judgment. She has acted against private individuals, social media platforms and a variety of publishers including the Daily Mail and MailOnline, the Mirror, Express Newspapers, the Guardian, the Times and the BBC, as well as foreign newspapers in both English proceedings and multi-jurisdictional matters. She also deals with complaints to IPSO and assists on media law issues arising in arbitration proceedings As part of her privacy practice, Mathilde regularly acts for clients in anonymised proceedings involving misuse of private information, breach of confidence, blackmail and harassment, both in the High Court and in arbitrations. She obtains urgent injunctions for celebrities, leading business figures, politicians and others, restraining breaches of privacy, in litigation and arbitration matters, and secures the removal of sensitive material from the internet. She also advises on confidentiality provisions within settlement agreements, and drafts and advises on non-disclosure agreements. Mathilde’s data protection practice involves work asserting the Right to Be Forgotten, from the initial stages of online removal of search results and links through to court proceedings against search engines, as well as complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office. She also advises on rights and obligations arising from the General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, including subject access rights. Mathilde also has experience in contentious and non-contentious intellectual property and information technology cases and general litigation matters. She regularly publishes expert commentary on recent legal developments, including in the national and legal press. Mathilde is a pro bono legal adviser at the Waterloo Legal Advice Service.

Helena Shipman

Senior Associate:  Helena advises on defamation, misuse of private information and data protection claims (pre-publication and post-publication including claims with international aspects), non-party disclosure applications; cases against national newspapers, search engines, social networks and individuals. She has represented clients in the High Court, Court of Appeal and European Court of Justice, on behalf of both claimants and defendants.

Persephone Bridgman Baker

Persephone is a partner at Carter-Ruck and specialises in media and reputation management work, encompassing defamation, privacy and harassment, together with data protection and intellectual property litigation. She advises on reputation management matters for celebrity, high-profile and ultra and high net worth individuals, including misuse of private information and harassment. Increasingly this work involves social media and online harms. Persephone also works on both pre-publication and post-publication matters against a variety of news publishers in a wide variety of divergent subject areas including entertainment, politics, healthcare, and anti-terrorism. She has experience of “Right to be Forgotten” cases concerning the removal of information online, and the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR and the interplay between these and general reputation management matters. Persephone’s litigation experience has also included breach of confidence and trade secrets disputes, including cases involving aspects of corporate fraud.

Rebecca Toman

Rebecca is a partner at Carter-Ruck.  She acts for UK and non UK HNW and UHNWIs, politicians, entrepreneurs, celebrities and high profile business people providing both contentious and non-contentious advisory services concerning business and personal assets. She protects their welfare and livelihoods through the provision of discreet legal guidance on a myriad of complex and sensitive reputation protection, dispute resolution, data and cyber security issues. She is also very experienced in dealing with complex multi-jurisdictional matters. Rebecca is highly recommended within the industry having obtained significant damages, secured numerous injunctions, takedowns, apologies, corrections and securing the removal of digital content. Rebecca works with her clients to help devise personal, private office and commercial strategies and security policies to protect their businesses and reputation from attack. This includes working with her clients’ existing public relations and in house communication teams and effective external consultants and organisations when necessary. Rebecca’s practice encompasses:​ defamation and privacy –pre and post publication and broadcast matters including the obtaining of injunctions all aspects of media law reputation protection, risk & crisis management digital and data privacy - including internet takedown work dispute resolution non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) asset protection employment advice including confidentiality provisions within settlement agreements.