The High Court has dismissed parts of a defamation action brought by Felix Grovit and ordered a preliminary hearing on whether a separate claim over an online statement is out of time. The court did not decide whether that website statement was defamatory.
In a judgment delivered on 22 September 2020, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland ruled that the Irish courts had no jurisdiction over Grovit’s claim for a declaration that he owed no money to Hendrik Jan Jansen. The pleadings did not identify the sums, the facts behind the claim or the alleged harmful event needed to establish jurisdiction, she said.
The court also dismissed the claims concerning a notice published in The Times in June 2014. The notice summoned Grovit and his son as witnesses at a preliminary hearing in Amsterdam. Justice Hyland held that the notice could not reasonably carry the pleaded meanings that Grovit was a debtor or owed Jansen money. The other pleaded meanings—that Grovit was called as a witness and was involved in proceedings not concerning him personally—were not defamatory. The ruling was made under section 14 of the Defamation Act 2009. The judge did not rule on Jansen’s separate argument that the notice was protected by privilege.
Grovit’s action also concerned a statement posted on the website of Jansen’s Dutch lawyers. The judge rejected Jansen’s arguments that the Irish proceedings over that statement should be struck out as an abuse of process. She said earlier Dutch interlocutory decisions had not finally determined the specific allegation brought in Ireland, and the high threshold for striking out on abuse-of-process grounds was not met.
However, the website statement was published on 17 May 2013, while the Irish proceedings began on 1 August 2014. The judge said the claim was prima facie outside the one-year limitation period, but Grovit’s side sought an extension. She directed a preliminary hearing to decide whether the claim is statute barred and, if so, whether an extension should be granted.
The judgment also permitted an amendment to the plenary summons to correct its jurisdictional endorsement. It found that the court had jurisdiction over the defamation claims concerning both the notice and the website statement, while making clear that the website claim’s limitation question remained unresolved. The proceedings had been continued by an administrator ad litem after Grovit’s death in 2018.