It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and I had just walked back from the supermarket after purchasing bread and bananas. The mail that awaited my return did not need to be opened to appreciate my day had taken a turn for the worse. The return address sticker on the back of the envelope read ‘Carter-Ruck Solicitors’. Anyone who diligently follows British news is familiar with the name of this firm. They are the most notorious libel lawyers operating in England, the country with the world’s most notorious libel laws. If you want to silence somebody somewhere, your best choice is to hire Carter-Ruck. The news coverage for Carter-Ruck speaks for itself.
Britain’s fiercest libel firm can pursue anyone, anywhere
…One former Carter-Ruck employee says that the main objective in many of the cases they worked on was simply “to muddy the waters and cast doubt on particular allegations”, even if there might be some substance to them. (Carter-Ruck said this description was “as absurd as it is false”.) Another ex-employee put it more succinctly: “You have to be a professional bastard: that’s your job.”
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
openDemocracy
‘Our biggest obstacles are not hit squads or cyber attacks, it is firms in London working day in, day out to attack free speech in the interests of very rich and powerful people who rightly deserve scrutiny,’ said Burgis, who named Carter-Ruck, Schillings, Mishcon de Reya and Taylor Wessing as among the firms who have sought to pressure and intimidate journalists into dropping stories.
The Law Society Gazette
Publishing Commsrisk has led to various vague threats of legal repercussions over the years. I ignored them all, but none compares to Carter-Ruck being engaged by Global Voice Group (GVG) to go after me. The threat is implicit; it demonstrates that GVG has the spending power to bury me, irrespective of the weakness of the claims made by the expensive lawyers they have hired. If they take me to court they do not really have to win. They can just rack up such a large legal bill that if any technicality leads costs to be awarded against me then I will be financially ruined.
It is ironic that GVG uses lawyers like this to defend their reputation, given that GVG’s business model involves trashing the reputation of comms providers by spreading unsubstantiated rumors about them systematically cheating their taxes. However, it would be a mistake to engage directly with GVG or their lawyers in an argument about facts. They are not interested in a balanced appraisal of the facts. Nor do they feel shame. GVG are the kind of people who will sign a lengthy contract with a mass murderer if it means they can pick the pockets of African phone users. That is my opinion, based on numerous reports from numerous countries. They are not ashamed of what they do; they would just prefer that nobody draws attention to it.
Regular readers will know how much I despise GVG, and how much I despise lawyers. But now is not the time to repeat those opinions. You can go back and read previous Commsrisk articles if you want to be reminded. Now is the time to observe the consistency in the editorial policy of Commsrisk. Consistency matters because there can be no victory over corruption or illegality if the truth is altered whenever it becomes inconvenient. There is a reason why people keep threatening Commsrisk, and why I have tried to be consistent by rebuffing every single threat.
I have ignored Carter-Ruck’s demand to change previous articles about GVG. None will be changed, and none will be removed, and that is my final word on the matter. GVG and Carter-Ruck pose a bigger threat than any Commsrisk has faced before, but the principles at stake remain the same. If GVG wants to pursue this further, they will have to escalate their use of the English legal system to harass me. Either they succeed in shutting down Commsrisk and entirely removing it from the web, or the opinions published by Commsrisk will continue to be published by Commsrisk. There will be no compromise.
My response to the demands in the letter from Carter-Ruck is consistent with the approach taken when subjected to similar demands from others. BT pressured me in September 2008 to remove content they disliked. The Mobile Ecosystem Forum pressured me in October 2024 to change content they disliked. If anything, I am now grateful for previous harassment from businesses that sought to challenge scrutiny. Experience should help me to remain calm if GVG threatens me with poverty. There is nothing appealing about the prospect of losing my home because I have been hit with some unjustified claim for damages. But I must balance that risk against the prospect of corrupting my own soul, which does not appeal to me either.
The most important takeaway from this development is that GVG does not want you thinking about how they do business. So the best way to counter their bullying involves paying attention to what they do. Most of you have heard of the Streisand Effect: the attempt to censor information sometimes draws much more attention to it. If you have any appreciation for the work that has gone into Commsrisk over all these years, or if you feel any disgust at the way GVG does business, then please help me by sharing the news that GVG is paying one of the world’s most notorious law firms to hound Commsrisk.
Now is not a great time to harness the Streisand Effect. Fewer professionals visit websites like this over the Summer months. Social media becomes noticeably less viral. That may explain why they chose to pressure me in a letter dated 13 June when the most recent Commsrisk article about GVG was published on 15 April. They obviously were not trying to shut down the stories as quickly as possible. Commsrisk has been publishing stories about GVG since 2016. During all that time, GVG never saw any value in trying to contact me directly, without involving their lawyers.
GVG now demands that I give notice of any future criticism, and this be provided to them via the expensive staff of Carter-Ruck. They say it is necessary so they can respond to it in advance. That is just another ruse to waste my time. Nobody is under any legal obligation to provide advance notice of criticizing somebody else. Their purpose will be the same if they decide to drag me through the courts: to drain my time, grind me down and exhaust my resources.
I can show the demand for a fair hearing is a ruse by offering James Claude, CEO of GVG the opportunity to have his say in a one-on-one livestreamed conversation with me. Many of the world’s leading experts at managing risk in the communications sector have spoken with me live in front of an online audience. This would be a rare opportunity for GVG to change the minds of professionals who are most likely to loathe their business. But the invitation will not be accepted because nobody at GVG wants to answer questions about how they make money and where the money goes. They say they serve the best interests of ordinary Africans. I say the opposite, and that more Africans need to hold them to account, while also holding governments to account before they sign lengthy contracts with GVG.
Public awareness of the issues involved in signing these contracts is important. That is why GVG actively seeks to influence public opinion about telecoms revenue assurance, a discipline that is otherwise so obscure that relatively few telco employees know anything about it, never mind the general public. GVG has a long track record of trying to influence how their work is perceived by the public, and that is why they have hired one of the world’s top firms at controlling the media narrative. I admit to being impressed by the way Carter-Ruck has worded their letter. They are much better at this than anyone who tried to intimidate me before.
The kind of people who run GVG and Carter-Ruck treat life as a game, where the players keep score by measuring how much material wealth they have accumulated. Not everybody keeps score like that. Even so, it is quite possible I will lose this game, and this might be the beginning of the end for Commsrisk. If so, I still consider it was worth trying to do some good by saying things that others knew to be true but were afraid to say publicly.
The letter from Carter-Ruck is reproduced in full below. Regular readers may notice the factual inaccuracies it contains. I share it because I advocate for transparency, not because I endorse the letter’s contents, or wish to argue about them now. You can also download or share a color PDF scan of the letter from here.
I will finish with an apology of sorts. Some may be disappointed to learn that I will take the rest of this week off, and maybe longer, so I can make preparations in case GVG sues me. I lack experience at defending Commsrisk in court; nobody previously had the guts to follow through on the threats they made. Commsrisk normally pumps out new content every weekday but this news deserves to be dwelled upon. If you do not like the prospect of them silencing Commsrisk’s brand of criticism, now would be a good time to make some noise about it. Perhaps it will discourage them from pursuing this further.
