The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition is highly critical of the decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to close the complaint brought by Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins against Discreet Law, the firm that represented Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, without any further action.
The libel case brought by Prigozhin against Higgins bears many of the hallmarks of a SLAPP, including the singling out of a journalist for tweets linking to articles by several non UK media outlets, which themselves were not subject to any legal action. Discreet Law, a UK based law firm, which has since ceased practice, pursued legal action against Higgins and also explored similar litigation against the BBC, which was later understood to be an intentional strategy by Prigozhin to undermine the basis of sanctions against him. More background to the case is included below.
“The SRA’s decision to close the complaint without further action is extremely disappointing, and casts a shadow over the regulator’s role to hold those enabling SLAPPs to account. Prigozhin’s lawyers helped a sanctioned warlord target an individual journalist for a series of tweets linking to reports, while notably not challenging the better-resourced media outlets. While lawyers should not be conflated with their clients, they are responsible for the strategies they decide to pursue on their behalf.”
– Co-chairs of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition.
“While Prigozhin denied his link to the Wagner Group at the time, he was already sanctioned by the UK Government, as well as by the US and EU, and as such Discreet Law had to seek special exemption to receive payment to represent him. The red flags were there, and how the SRA can conclude that the law firm satisfied itself of the merits of their client’s case, when the truth was in fact the opposite, is baffling. We are seriously concerned that the closure of this case will result in a loss of confidence in the regulator and fewer people experiencing SLAPPs coming forward to complain.”
Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, said:
“It’s difficult to imagine a clearer example of a SLAPP, so to be told by the SRA Prigozhin’s lawyers are in the clear suggests to me that current legislation around SLAPP cases are insufficient and new legislation is required.”
The decision to close the complaint appears to go against the SRA’s guidance – both the ‘Warning Notice on SLAPPs’, first published in 2022 and updated in 2024, as well as the 2018 ‘Balancing duties in litigation,’ which explicitly states a lawyer’s role is not to be a ‘gun for hire’. While there are understood to have been over 70 cases into SLAPPs opened by the regulator, progress to investigate complaints has been slow, with only two cases thus far known to have been referred to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). Many targets of SLAPPs, the Coalition have spoken to, have raised concerns regarding the time taken by the regulator when investigating their cases, with a number reluctant to update their cases due to these delays and the lack of necessary communication or updates.
At the first SDT trial, held in December 2024, Ashley Hurst, Head of Client Strategy at Osborne Clarke LLP, was found guilty of improperly stifling public scrutiny in relation to correspondence he sent to tax lawyer Dan Neidle when acting for ex-minister Nadhim Zahawi. Hurst’s breach of the SRA’s Code of Conduct and Principles resulted in a fine of £50,000, plus the requirement to cover the SRA’s legal costs. However, the SDT concluded that the case was not a SLAPP because “there was no attempt to prevent scrutiny of Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs per se.”
Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates said:
“Zahawi knew the central accusation – that he’d failed to pay £4m in tax – was true, and tried to use the legal system to silence me. That is the definition of a SLAPP. It’s hard to understand why the SRA prosecuted it on such narrow grounds.”
Dr Helen Taylor, senior legal researcher at coalition member, Spotlight on Corruption who has been closely monitoring SLAPP-related SDT hearings said:
“The SRA’s case was very narrowly formulated to address only the concerns about the labelling of correspondence, which missed the opportunity to engage with Neidle’s more fundamental allegation that the firm had been complicit in misleading him about Zahawi’s tax affairs and threatened a defamation claim in order to prevent scrutiny of those tax affairs”
The co-chairs of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition said:
“This assertion came with no explanation as to how the SDT was characterising a SLAPP and highlights again the urgent need for a universal anti-SLAPP law, which would provide clarity across all sectors for the identification of SLAPPs.”
On Tuesday 28 January 2025, Lloyd Hatton MP raised a question to the Government regarding the SRA’s decision in Eliot Higgins’ case. It can be watched here.
Background
Eliot Higgins
Higgins was sued for libel by Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch often referred to as ‘Putin’s Chef’, in December 2021 over five tweets linking to investigations by three media outlets reporting on Prigozhin’s connections with the Wagner Group, a private military company. None of the media outlets were sued.
At the time Prigozhin denied any association with the Wagner Group, but had already been sanctioned by the UK Government in October 2020 for significant foreign mercenary activity in Libya and multiple breaches of the UN arms embargo, linked to the Wagner Group. The group was itself sanctioned in March 2022. The legal case against Higgins was struck out of the UK High Court in May 2022, after Prigozhin’s lawyers at Discreet Law had withdrawn their representation following Russia’s full scale invasion into Ukraine and Prigozhin repeatedly failed to comply with court orders. Higgins was left £70,000 out of pocket for his defence. In September 2022, after Russia’s full scale invasion into Ukraine, Prigozhin identified himself as the leader of the Wagner Group (he was later killed in 2023).
In January 2023, it was later revealed that the UK government had granted licences for the law firm Discreet Law to be able to be paid using frozen funds to work on behalf of Prigozhin, despite the sanctions, and moreover agreed to authorise expenses for lawyers to travel to St Petersburg to meet with Prigozhin to discuss the case. This revelation led to a change in government policy announced in March 2023 to prevent the automatic granting of licences for this type of legal action.
To see more – https://antislapp.uk/project/eliot-higgins
Dan Neidle
Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates and a British tax lawyer, researcher and commentator, had been investigating the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi’s financial ties to YouGov. There were concerns as to whether Zahawi was benefiting from tax codes he had a hand in shaping. In a lengthy and detailed Twitter thread, setting out his evidence, Neidle alleged that Zahawi had avoided almost £4m of capital gains tax.
In July 2022, Neidle received a Twitter DM from Zahawi’s lawyers, Osborne Clarke asking for a phone call. Neidle instead requested that he be contacted in writing, but noted that he would not accept ‘without prejudice’ correspondence. ‘Without prejudice’ is a longstanding rule which aims to support the negotiations of settlements, and avoid a court hearing “which means that the circumstances in which the content of those negotiations may be revealed to the court are very restricted.”
Osborne Clarke nevertheless sent Neidle two letters. The first was marked ‘confidential and without prejudice’ and the second ‘not for publication’ and asked him not only to retract his accusation by the end of the day, but suggested that it would be a “serious matter” if he published the legal letters. Neidle noted that the second letter “says, rather artfully, that it’s not actually a threat to sue for libel. But it comes from a libel lawyer, and tries to prevent me publishing it. Similar letters have been sent to others in recent weeks, and I understand Zahawi has done this before – using lawyers to silence people writing about his tax affairs.”
Believing that the assertions of confidentiality were false, and that the letters were rather an attempt to intimidate him, Neidle chose to publish the letters, and draw the public’s attention to the use of SLAPPs to silence researchers.
To see more – https://antislapp.uk/project/dan-neidle
