William Hayward, the CEO of Private Media told“Whilst we didn’t start this fight, we are prepared to defend our reporting, and the right to publish opinion that the powerful disagree with, in court,” he said.For many weeks, lawyers for Private Media have been negotiating with Lachlan Murdoch’s lawyers about the article at the centre of the stoush, according to the correspondence.’s political editor Bernard Keane published the comment piece titled, “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor.
The Concerns Notice letter argued the publication “was likely to cause serious harm to Mr Murdoch’s reputation within the meaning” of Australia’s defamation laws.Apology offered and rejected Minter Ellison and later Marque Lawyers acting on behalf of Private Media went back and forward with Mr Murdoch’s lawyer, eventually offering an apology that could be issued on behalf Mr Fray, the correspondence shows.does not believe Mr Murdoch was “directly involved in the events of that day”, but rather “Mr Murdoch bears some responsibility”.
“The offer made in your letter is rejected by Mr Murdoch,” the News Corp co-chairman’s lawyer wrote back. In a later letter, a lawyer said Mr Murdoch wanted to “resolve the matter with Crikey as he has successfully done so in the past” with the only issue being a “genuine apology”.Marque Lawyers’ managing partner Michael Bradley wrote back: “Readers would think our client is apologising for the article itself. It won’t. It stands by our reporting”.
“There has not yet been a major test case on the serious harm threshold and the public interest defence,” Professor Rolph said. “So it is not yet entirely clear how either of these will work in practice.”