High Court issues first major SLAPP ruling

This case provides important clarity on how courts will assess and manage claims that may cross the line from legitimate reputation protection into abusive litigation.

Background to the claim

The dispute arose from a 26 February 2025 article published by Tax Policy Associates Ltd (TPA) written by its founder, tax specialist Dan Neidle.

The article, entitled “TikTok tax avoidance from Arka Wealth: why the Government and the Bar should act” strongly criticised a tax avoidance structure promoted by Arka Wealth and referred extensively to barrister Mr Setu Kamal, whose advice the promoters claimed to rely on. The article described the scheme as “nonsense”, warned that users were likely to incur significant tax liabilities, and highlighted Mr Kamal’s past litigation record and disciplinary referral.

Mr Kamal issued proceedings for libel and malicious falsehood, alleging that the article falsely associated him with a failed or unlawful tax scheme and misrepresented the outcome of his disciplinary referral. He also sought a court ordered apology and claimed very substantial financial losses of £8million.

The defendants applied for strike out/summary judgment, and also applied for a declaration that the action was a SLAPP. The Court (Collins Rice J) dismissed the claim entirely. Mr Kamal's claim in malicious falsehood was struck out and the defendants were awarded summary judgment in his defamation claim.

Importantly, the court also declared that the entire action was a statutory SLAPP - the first such designation under the SLAPP statutory regime introduced by the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (the Act).

What is a SLAPP?

The statutory SLAPP test has four components under s.195 of the Act:

• The claim has the effect of restraining the defendant’s exercise of the right to freedom of speech
• The publication has to do with economic crime
• The publication is engaged with the public interest in combating economic crime
• The conduct of the claimant is intended to cause the defendant harassment, expense or inconvenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation.

The court concluded that all were met in this case.

The claim restrained freedom of speech

Defamation proceedings inherently seek to restrain speech; the Act requires courts to ignore any otherwise lawful limitations on speech when assessing this element. The court held that a publication which is the subject of a claim may contain either factual or opinion material.

The publication “has to do with economic crime”

The court analysed this issue in detail, noting that the statutory test does not require proof that an economic crime has actually been committed. Instead, it is sufficient that the defendant had reason to suspect that such a crime may have occurred or believed publication would facilitate an investigation.

The defendants' evidence on this issue submitted that the Arka Wealth structure fell into a “grey area” where criminality could arise depending on non‑disclosure, that promoters of ineffective schemes often fail to comply with disclosure obligations, and that these factors provided a reasonable basis for suspicion. 

The court accepted the defendants’ evidence that they reasonably suspected economic crime might have occurred and believed publication of the article could facilitate investigation. The court concluded that at least some of the information published clearly “had to do with economic crime” within the meaning of the statute.

The publication served a public interest purpose in combating economic crime

The court emphasised that, for this part of the test to be met, any part of a publication served a public interest purpose in combating economic crime and that it need not be the primary or dominant purpose.

The article’s calls for HMRC to investigate Arka Wealth, for regulators to intervene, and for legislative reform to deter abusive schemes were held to be plainly connected to the wider public interest in combating economic crime. The court also accepted unchallenged evidence from Mr Neidle confirming that this was indeed one of his purposes in publishing the article.

The claimant intended to cause the defendant harassment, expense or inconvenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation

The Court noted that the SLAPP test is fundamentally about how litigation is conducted and that it was a test with two features:

• That it depends on the intention of the claimant

• That intention must relate to the causing to the defendant of various adversities or inconvenience ‘beyond that ordinarily encountered in the course of properly conducted litigation’

The court noted that the test does not require that the behaviour of a claimant should have succeeded in producing the effects intended, i.e. it is not a test of cause and effect, but a test of intention.

Importantly, it also held that a claim is a SLAPP in its entirety if a court can properly conclude that any of the claimant's behaviour was undertaken with the intention of subjecting a defendant to (at least) inconvenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in the ordinary course of properly conducted litigation.

The court identified three intentional acts by Mr Kamal that crossed the line:

• Procedural and compliance failures

Mr Kamal attempted to obtain an injunction preventing publication which was dismissed for a catalogue of procedural and substantive failings. He also failed to put the defendants on notice of the application, which the court held may have misled the court hearing that application. Given a prior referral to the Divisional Court for his conduct, the court concluded this was not inadvertent. It also took into account Mr Kamal's irremediably defective pleadings and his unacceptable deployment of AI generated hallucinations in correspondence with the defendants' solicitors.

• A grossly inflated £8 million damages claim

This element of Mr Kamal's claim was based on a contract the court described as implausible and unsupported by evidence. The court found that the exaggerated quantum was intended to create a chilling effect on the defendants' journalism.

• Attempts to compel speech or obtain protected information

Mr Kamal demanded apologies, statements praising his professional standing, publication of his documents, access to subscriber lists, and disclosure of journalistic sources. These were found to be deliberate intrusions into the defendants’ Article 10 rights to freedom of speech under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court held that together, the test was passed and that these actions showed an intention to burden the defendants with harassment, expense and inconvenience beyond that inherent in normally conducted litigation. It also noted that the threshold for a defendant to establish that a claimant intended to cause the defendant inconvenience was "conspicuously low".

Conclusion

Kamal v Tax Policy Associates & Neidle is significant as the first statutory SLAPP designation under the Act and the first judgment explaining how the courts will apply the test. Each application will, however, stand on its own facts. As a court will assess all litigation and pre‑action conduct when considering how a claim has been pursued, and because SLAPP applications are likely to be legally and factually complex, the costs of preparing them will likely reflect that complexity.

This case was also, to some extent, atypical: Mr Kamal was not represented by a team of claimant solicitors but appeared as a senior barrister (albeit not a libel specialist), so the defendants were relieved from any intimidatory costs jeopardy. There was also no disparity of wealth/resources between the parties, nor any suggestion that Mr Kamal could have sued a more well‑resourced defendant. The absence of these features, which are commonly associated with SLAPPs, demonstrates that they are not a bar to a court concluding that a claim is a SLAPP.