The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled Conrad Black may proceed in Ontario courts with a series of libel lawsuits against former associates of Hollinger International.
Black originally sued the defendants, including former head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Richard Breeden, for comments he saw as defamatory. Those comments were published in the U.S. and then reprinted by media outlets in Canada.
The Ontario Court of Appeal had upheld Black's right to sue, but the defendants took the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
The defendants argued that U.S. courts were a more appropriate forum for the lawsuit, because Hollinger is based in the U.S. However, the high court ruled that because Black's reputation will likely suffer most in Canada, "an Illinois court does not emerge as a clearly more appropriate forum than an Ontario court" for hearing the case.
"Conrad Black is delighted about the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada," said a statement from Black's lawyers. Black and his former associates have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to settle the dispute.
Lawyers for the defendants called Black a "libel tourist" for wanting to sue in Ontario courts. Black abandoned his Canadian citizenship in 2001 in order to accept an appointment to the British House of Lords.
In its ruling, the high court said that while Black no longer lives in Ontario, "he spent most of his adult life in Ontario, first established his reputation as a businessman in Ontario, is a member of the Order of Canada, the Canadian Business Hall of Fame and the Canadian Press Hall of Fame, and is the subject of five books written by Toronto-area authors."
The ruling sets a Canadian precedent, paving the way for a person to sue for libel in a different location than where the libel occurred.
"It sets a precedent for a lot of other lawsuits like that to be perhaps in a different venue than they would have been," CTV News Channel's Mercedes Stephenson said. "In the day and age of 24-7 mass media and the Internet, obviously things like that can spread very quickly."