Irish Businessman Denis O'Brien Sues Parliament, Sends Legal Threat To Satirical Newspaper

Free Speech

from the and-we'll-cover-all-of-it dept

Remember Denis O’Brien? He’s apparently an Irish media bigwig that we’d never heard of until earlier this year when he received a ridiculous injunction barring the media from reporting on a speech given in the Irish Parliament by a member, Catherine Murphy, in which she outlined some questionable loans that were given by the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation to O’Brien. Here was the crux of that speech:

We are now aware, for example, that the former CEO of IBRC made verbal agreements with Denis O’Brien to allow him to extend the terms of his already expired loans. We also know that the verbal agreement was never escalated to the credit committee for approval. I am led to believe and would welcome clarification by the Minister that the rates applicable to the extension were extremely favourable. I understand that Mr. O’Brien was enjoying a rate of approximately 1.25% when IBRC could, and arguably should, have been charging 7.5%. Given that we are talking about outstanding sums of upwards of ?500 million, the interest rate applied is not an insignificant issue for the public interest. We also know that Denis O’Brien felt confident enough in his dealings with IBRC that he could write to Kieran Wallace, the special liquidator, to demand that the same favourable terms extended to him by way of a verbal agreement be continued. We now have Kieran Wallace, who has been appointed by the Government to conduct the IBRC review, joining with IBRC and Denis O’Brien in the High Court to seek to injunct the information I have outlined from coming into the public domain. Surely, that alone represents a conflict.

In documents released to me under freedom of information, the Minister, his officials, the Central Bank and even the troika acknowledge that IBRC – the former Anglo Irish Bank – is no ordinary bank and that there is a significant public interest as the bank was fully nationalised and was in wind-down mode. They all accept that this is the people’s money we are dealing with and that there can be no dispute regarding the public interest in this.

And then, just a few days ago, O’Brien sued an entire committee of the Parliament (called the Dáil) after the committee decided that Murphy did not abuse her parliamentary privilege in making that speech.

But, that’s not all that is keeping O’Brien’s lawyers busy. He also had them send a ridiculous takedown letter to a satirical publication, called Waterford Whispers News. That entire publication is satirical, in the nature of the Onion, but apparently O’Brien is too thin-skinned to handle that and his lawyers went ballistic. From the letter:

On your website you published an article entitled “Denis O’Brien receives 20 year jail sentence for mobile phone licence bribe in parallel universe”. This has also been posted on your Facebook and Twitter pages.

The article claims that in a “parallel universe”, which “operates the same as the one lived in Ireland today, only the Director of Public Prosecutions more stridently pursues white collar crime”, our client has been found guilty of making two payments to Michael Lowry in connection with the award of the State’s second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone and that the “Moriarty Tribunal found [him] guilty” of bribery. The article features a photo-shopped picture of our client, super-imposed on the body of what appears to be notorious criminal John Gilligan, being led away in handcuffs by a member of the prison service.

The reference to a ‘parallel universe’ are a sham. The clear meaning and innuendo of this article is that our client is a criminal who has managed to evade prosecution to date. This is a malicious and deliberate defamation of the most serious kind.

I have to admit the line “the reference to a ‘parallel universe’ are a sham” may be one of the funniest lines I’ve seen in a bullshit cease-and-desist threat letter in a long time. It doesn’t seem like a sham at all. After all, O’Brien has not yet been convicted or sentenced, and thus it would have to be in a parallel universe.

Either way, the threat “worked” in that Waterford Whisper News did, in fact, remove the article, but its Editor in Chief, Colm Williamson, posted the threat letter instead, getting all of this a hell of a lot more attention. The site also posted an “apology” to John Gilligan for using his photo in that way:

ON Wednesday the 5th of August 2015 WWN published a mock photo using the body of notorious criminal John Gilligan. This was an error. It is the intention of the WWN editorial team to offer its sincere apologies for any offence caused to Mr. Gilligan for this mistake.

To associate him with another individual and any widely circulated public utterances relating to that individual must have been an unpleasant experience for Mr. Gilligan, and we deeply regret this.

That “apology” goes on to discuss reporter Veronica Guerin who was threatened by Galligan and eventually murdered for writing about Irish criminal gang members. It isn’t difficult to get the point that Wateford Whisper News is making with the following:

Guerin, in her profession as a journalist, suffered greatly in the face of Ireland?s draconian libel laws in the 1990s as lawyers repeatedly warned her of impending libel suits were she to publish accusations against criminals.

Deeming it in the public interest to learn of Dublin?s crime epidemic, Guerin was left with little choice but to directly confront notorious gangland figures for comments relating to allegations against them.

Had she not done so her stories could be prevented from making it to print as criminals could make use of libel laws to suppress the freedom of the press.

WWN is thankful that some 19 years later such tasking, restrictive and wile measures are not taken by individuals to suppress free speech in Ireland.

Either way, when you’re at the point in which you have lawyers threatening people making jokes about you, you’ve gone off the deep end, far away from the pool of “rational thought.” But, of course, as a side benefit, the ridiculous ham-fisted efforts of O’Brien’s lawyers at Meagher Solicitors is now getting much more attention to the original story — and leading many more people to learn about the kinds of things Denis O’Brien really, really wishes no one would talk about (and I won’t even get into the fact that the “signature” on the legal threat letter is of the name of the firm, rather than any individual there).

Filed Under: catherine murphy, dail, denis o'brien, free speech, ireland, parallel universe, satire, streisand effect
Companies: waterford whispers news