## Facts

- John Alexis Mardas, a Greek domiciliary known in the 1960s as “Magic Alex,” sued The New York Times Company in England for libel.
- The challenged article, published in the newspaper’s U.S. print edition and on its website, described Mardas in terms he alleged meant “conman,” “trickster,” or “charlatan,” and suggested he made false claims and spread rumors affecting the Beatles.
- The article’s print circulation was wide in the United States but limited in England and Wales.
- Although the online article was accessible in England, there was no substantial evidence of significant readership there.
- Mardas provided limited evidence of a current, substantial reputation in England and Wales that was likely to be harmed by the publication.
- The defendant sought to strike out or summarily dismiss the claim as an abuse of process, relying on the principle that trivial domestic publication and damage can make defamation litigation disproportionate.

## Issues

1. Whether an English libel action should proceed where the claimant was domiciled abroad, the defendant was a U.S. publisher, and publication within England and Wales was very limited.
2. Whether the claim should be struck out as an abuse of process because the scale of publication and likely reputational harm in England and Wales was so minimal that litigation would be disproportionate.

## Decision

- The court struck out/dismissed the claim as an abuse of process.
- Applying the proportionality approach associated with Jameel v. Dow Jones, the court held that the limited publication and likely damage in England and Wales did not justify the burden and cost of English libel proceedings.
- The court treated the English action as forum-driven litigation given the dispute’s primary connection to the United States.

## Legal Principles

- A defamation claim may be struck out as an abuse of process even if a technical cause of action is pleaded, where pursuing the claim would be disproportionate to the limited publication and harm within the forum.
- In cross-border defamation, minimal domestic publication and trivial likely reputational impact can justify dismissal to prevent disproportionate use of court resources.
- Courts may consider whether the forum has a sufficiently substantial connection to the dispute and may resist claims that effectively seek a claimant-friendly forum despite negligible local impact.
- Proportionality concerns include the burdens and chilling effects of defamation litigation relative to the modest domestic footprint of the publication.

## Conclusion

The High Court dismissed the libel action because publication and likely reputational harm in England and Wales were too limited to warrant English proceedings, applying an abuse-of-process proportionality analysis to prevent forum-driven claims with negligible domestic impact.


Mardas v. N.Y. Times Co., [2008] EWHC 3135 (Q.B.) (Eng.)