The Parliamentary Question Carter Ruck and Trafigura don’t want you to see
Update 19/10/09 – London art gallery dumps toxic sponsorship deal with Trafigura!
From The Guardian
The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which appear to call into question privileges guaranteeing free speech established under the 1688 Bill of Rights.
Today’s published Commons order papers contain a question to be answered by a minister later this week. The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.
The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret.
The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.
From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009”
(292409)
61
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
Click here for more background on the Trafigura/Carter-Ruck libel-abuse cover-up
UPDATE – pleased to see that the mighty Guido Fawkes had the same idea. Injunction scuppered…
UPDATE 2 – “Jack of Kent” gives a legal view
UPDATE 3 – Big thumbs up to The Spectator for, I think, being the first mainstream UK media to break ranks and fully report what’s been going on. If only they were this good the whole time – for any Spectator staff who are reading, can I request more of the defending-democracy stuff and less of the pseudo-debating AIDS-denialism? I hope Lord Fowler knows what you’re letting him in for!
Richard Wilson's blog 
That’s it? Talk about counter productive for Trafigura/Carter Ruck! What are they going to do, file injunctions against Jack Straw when he eventually answers the Q? These super injunctions need to die, and fast.
Conrad
October 12, 2009 at 9:58 pm
They’ll have fun suing the entire bloody internet. Carter Ruck vs Berners Lee. Hee hee.
Tim Footman
October 12, 2009 at 10:27 pm
[…] [Such as, for example, this one. […]
it’s 11:30pm, do you know where your representatives are?; at [last year's girl]
October 12, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Anybody for ‘gagging’ Carter Ruck on Thursday – flashmob/blockade kinda thing outside their London office?
Jamie Potter
October 12, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Interesting idea! We’d need someone to do some placards, maybe?
Richard Wilson
October 12, 2009 at 11:56 pm
I think just a mass of people would do. @hannahnicklin on twitter suggested standing silently, perhaps with our mouths physically gagged.
Jamie Potter
October 13, 2009 at 12:13 am
Sounds good – I MAY be able to make it and would be v. happy to spreadh the word
Richard Wilson
October 13, 2009 at 12:19 am
[…] to see why Trafigura’s lawyers Carter-Ruck would go to such trouble to get a media gag on Paul Farrelly MP’s Parliamentary Question about the press freedom implications of the Trafigura case. For the most part, the cat’s […]
The “Minton Report” – is this the detail that Carter-Ruck wanted suppressed? « Don’t Get Fooled Again
October 13, 2009 at 12:18 am
This website could come in handy for organising it: http://tweetvite.com/event/gagcarterruck
Jamie Potter
October 13, 2009 at 12:26 am
Nice work – have tweeted… Off to bed now but keep me posted!
Richard Wilson
October 13, 2009 at 12:34 am
I’ve been trying to figure out how they’ve pulled this off legally, and not got so far. Anybody want to enlighten me?
Dan
October 13, 2009 at 12:30 am
Googling for the Minton report, I found that an article about it was removed from this site an hour ago.
“The “Minton Report” – is this the detail that Carter-Ruck wanted …
The existence of the Minton report, which was given to Trafigura in 2006 but only recently disclosed, appears to suggest that, despite their denials, …https://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-minton-report-is-this-the-detail-that-carter-ruck-wanted-suppressed/ ”
What’s going on here?
Jack
October 13, 2009 at 2:07 am
This is the Minton report (as mentioned above), but never until today mentioned in UK media (despite articles on this scandal being run)
Click to access waterson-toxicwaste-ivorycoast-%C3%A92009.pdf
Neil
October 13, 2009 at 2:51 am
It was amazing to find a tweet from Jay Rosen (journalism NYU) bemoaning the Guardian gag, then another tweet from Alex Howard, a technical journalist friend in DC pointing me here, and yet another from Rebecca MacKinnon, professor at UHK Journalism pointing me to Wikileaks — all perhaps within an hour.
Yes, yes, amazing things these interwebs.
Shava Nerad
October 13, 2009 at 6:44 am
Has the Speccie entry been taken down now? It looks like it to me
Mycroft
October 13, 2009 at 6:55 am
[…] blogging ’sceptics’ – @dontgetfooled and lawyer @jackofkent seem to have got there first, digging up the following from Parliament.uk, […]
Rehashing a hashtag – the gagging of The Guardian « I was becoming quite dead alive, nothing but a word bag.
October 13, 2009 at 8:27 am
er, what happened to your other post? The one specifically about the Minton Report?
Don’t start getting me paranoid…
Dan
October 13, 2009 at 8:36 am
[…] on Twitter (that’s in the whole world). The Spectator has already broken the wall between what the blogs will say and what the print media thinks it can get away with … and many, many more people are now […]
Mugging the rich bastard lawyers | The Wardman Wire
October 13, 2009 at 8:39 am
[…] on Twitter (that’s in the whole world). The Spectator has already broken the wall between what the blogs will say and what the print media thinks it can get away with … and many, many more people are now […]
Mugging the rich bastard lawyers | Online Journalism Blog
October 13, 2009 at 8:50 am
Its trending on twitter – http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23trafigura
james blessing
October 13, 2009 at 8:51 am
[…] The question Carter Ruck don’t want you to see reported from Parliament (care of Richard Wilson’s […]
joannejacobs.net » Trafigura and Carter Ruck: How social media can guard against misuse of libel
October 13, 2009 at 9:45 am
[…] is kortom sprake van een totaalverbod. Gelukkig is er internet. Hier staat waar het om gaat. Om het in Amsterdam gevestigde Trafigura, het bedrijf dat met de Probo […]
Monddood maken « 2525
October 13, 2009 at 9:55 am
[…] Richard Wilson first published a related parliamentary question in full while Guido Fawkes did the same and provided a link to the […]
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October 13, 2009 at 10:47 am
[…] on Twitter (that’s in the whole world). The Spectator has already broken the wall between what the blogs will say and what the print media thinks it can get away with … and many, many more people are now […]
Mugging the rich bastard lawyers | Cosmodaddy
October 13, 2009 at 11:05 am
If this injunction isn’t overturned in the very near future we should start a riot, it’s unbelievable!
ukrichardah
October 13, 2009 at 11:26 am
[…] […]
Some free speech gubbins - kittyradio.com
October 13, 2009 at 11:28 am
[…] Effect. Meanwhile a simple Google search of “Carter Ruck Trafigura” took me to blogger Richard Wilson’s site. Wilson simply ignored the edict and linked to the parliamentary […]
Trafigura throttles the Guardian but not the guardians of the Internet « Woolly Days
October 13, 2009 at 11:45 am
[…] Wilson has the honour of being first on the case, though. He’d spotted the story and identified the question over an hour before anyone […]
Blogosphere Reactions to the Carter-Ruck Gagging Order | Sharpe's Opinion
October 13, 2009 at 12:20 pm
What a good article. See here for an open letter to Carter-Ruck:
http://cantankerous.co.uk/2009/10/13/an-open-letter-of-congratulations-to-carter-ruck-and-trafigura/
cantankerous
October 13, 2009 at 3:25 pm
What an excellent and important article.
See this open letter on the subject:
http://cantankerous.co.uk/2009/10/13/an-open-letter-of-congratulations-to-carter-ruck-and-trafigura/
cantankerous
October 13, 2009 at 3:26 pm
[…] has been muzzled concerning a parliamentary question on Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors. Reposted in full from Don’t Get Fooled Again: […]
Support the Guardian. « ModernityBlog
October 13, 2009 at 4:28 pm
[…] (Blog) Don’t Get Fooled Again by Richard Wilson – The Parliamentary Question Carter Ruck… […]
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October 13, 2009 at 6:30 pm
[…] out, and by the time I caught up with the story, Richard Wilson (like several other bloggers) had published the question on his own […]
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October 13, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Hope you get (historical) credit for being FIRST but fear Guido will …
paul canning
October 13, 2009 at 10:31 pm
[…] The Parliamentary Question Carter Ruck and Trafigura don’t want you to see From The Guardian The Guardian has been prevented from reporting parliamentary proceedings on legal grounds which […] […]
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October 14, 2009 at 12:25 am
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October 14, 2009 at 11:41 am
Mary Kennedy
October 14, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Trafigura attempts to silence Norwegian Media/Trafigura charged in Norway
http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/trafigura-attempts-to-silence-norwegian-mediatrafigura-charged-in-norway/
Rainbow Warrior
October 19, 2009 at 6:10 pm
[…] scandal. Six hours of TwitterIndignation later, during which time every censored detail was made freely available for all to see, and the injunction was, force majeure, lifted. The internet had hobbled it fatally […]
"OMG! That's disgusting!" Twitter and Stephen Fry's 'free speech' hypocrisy | 6000 miles from civilisation...
October 20, 2009 at 8:40 am
[…] noted by Richard Wilson, author of Don’t Get Fooled Again, and one of the bloggers to first publish MP Paul Farrelly’s secret injunction question on his blog, Trafigura – the third largest independent oil trader in the world – has been dropped […]
Trafigura dumped as art prize sponsor following ‘recent events’ | Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog
October 21, 2009 at 1:40 pm
wow… nice site …hi all… do not forget to put ads or shopping on our site
International Free Classifieds-Global Marketplace-Shopping Center
November 3, 2009 at 7:16 am
[…] rights activist, Richard Wilson, was one of the first to uncover the truth, and published a blog only half an hour later, following it with the tweet: Any guesses what this is about? My […]
Injunctions, the Internet and free speech «
January 18, 2010 at 11:19 am
[…] The Guardian on September 11th, 2009, in a bid to prevent the newspaper from factually reporting parliamentary questions that were asked relating to its […]
Ian Fraser - Business and Financial Journalist Ian Fraser » Blog Archive » RBS and Lloyds assist Trafigura with bond issue
March 12, 2010 at 9:44 pm
[…] might compare the above process to the mechanism involved in, say, accessing the text of a Parliamentary Question or a Select Committee report, […]
Trafigura vindicated? 115-page “Reply” which the company says rebuts the BBC’s case « Don't Get Fooled Again
March 23, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Well, we now know that TRAFIGURA have been found guilty of an evil crime..Carter Ruck tried to cover it up. Carter Ruck, are now trying to silence the Internet on behalf of their clients the Mccanns…WHO is going to put a stop to these threats and why if the Mccanns are innocent do they wish to ban FREE SPEECH?
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