Lachlan Murdoch seeks to expand lawsuit against Crikey

Media scion Lachlan Murdoch is seeking to expand his lawsuit against Crikey to pursue the chairman and chief executive of its publishing company, in a move likely to scupper the trial date.

The News Corp co-chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation is also seeking to reframe his lawsuit to cover two publications of an allegedly defamatory article instead of one, in an apparent attempt to torpedo the media outlet’s public interest defence.

Lachlan Murdoch, Private Media chair Eric Beecher and the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.Credit: Jessica Hromas, Thom Rigney, AP

In an application filed in the Federal Court earlier this month, Murdoch seeks to add Eric Beecher and Will Hayward, chairman and chief executive of Crikey’s publisher Private Media, as respondents to the lawsuit.

Private Media, journalist Bernard Keane and Crikey editor-in-chief Peter Fray are already named as respondents. Fray is currently on indefinite leave over unrelated matters.

At a preliminary hearing in Sydney on Thursday, Murdoch’s barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, told the Federal Court the Murdoch team had “come across information that demonstrates a highly active role [was played by Beecher and Hayward], which we say would make them publishers” of the article at the centre of the case.

Headlined “Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator”, the article was first published on June 29 but removed from Crikey’s website on June 30 after Murdoch’s solicitor wrote to the news outlet. It was republished on August 15.

Chrysanthou argued Beecher and Hayward were “active publishers” of the article when it was republished on August 15, “in that they planned it and pursued it as part of a plan”.

Murdoch is seeking to amend his statement of claim to characterise the article and its subsequent republication as two separate publications on June 29 and August 15 respectively, which may have tactical benefits.

Chrysanthou has previously alleged Crikey reposted the article in August in a bid to turn the dispute with Murdoch, then at the stage of legal letters, “into a massive subscription drive”. Crikey has handed over a document titled “Lachlan Murdoch campaign” during discovery, a pre-trial process providing access to documents.

At a preliminary hearing earlier this year, Chrysanthou argued the marketing campaign was relevant to a public interest defence pleaded by Crikey, under which Private Media must prove the “defamatory matter” concerned an issue of public interest and it “reasonably believed … the publication of the matter was in the public interest”.

Chrysanthou said reposting the article in August had “nothing to do with public interest journalism” and was to further Crikey’s marketing campaign, worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

But barrister Clarissa Amato, acting for Crikey, has argued Private Media only had to show it reasonably believed publishing the article was in the public interest when it was first posted on June 29, because Murdoch had not argued initially that the republication amounted to a separate publication.

The subsequent marketing campaign would only be relevant to any aggravated damages awarded if Murdoch won, Amato said of Murdoch’s initial claim over the June 29 article.

Justice Michael Wigney will decide next year whether Murdoch will be permitted to amend his lawsuit to add Beecher and Hayward as respondents and to sue over two publications instead of one.

Wigney said that “if the amendments are allowed and the two new respondents are added, the trial date ... would have to go”. The trial had been listed to start on March 27 next year. “It would either have to go or I would have to add another week to it [the trial] as a buffer,” Wigney said.

Amato agreed it would “bomb the hearing date”.

Murdoch claims the article conveys up to 14 false and defamatory meanings, including that he “illegally conspired with Donald Trump to incite an armed mob to march on the Capitol” following the 2020 presidential election.

Crikey denies any of the alleged meanings were conveyed. It also disputes that the article satisfied a new serious harm test.

If the court finds at least some of the meanings were conveyed and the serious harm test is satisfied, Crikey is seeking to rely in part on the new public interest defence that started last year in NSW.

The parties return to court on January 30.

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