Denis O’Brien has lost his defamation action against the Sunday Business Post.
The businessman had sued the newspaper over articles from March 2015 which were about a report into the Irish banks at the time of the financial crisis.
He said they portrayed him as one of the ‘developer kings’ who destroyed Ireland and bankrupted its banking system.
The Sunday Business Post denied defamation and said the articles didn’t mean what Mr O’Brien claimed.
Following around 7 hours of deliberations, the jury decided Mr O’Brien was NOT defamed in the articles.
The Sunday Business Post has welcomed the verdict of the jury in the High Court.
CEO Siobhán Lennon said:
"The case highlights the extent to which Ireland’s defamation laws place significant constraints on all Irish media outlets in their efforts to provide robust, objective and fair scrutiny of the stories that matter to Irish democracy.
We believe it is time for action to reform the relevant defamation laws and to ensure that the media are liberated from unreasonable pressures which currently exist”.
