High court refuses to lift Goodwin injunction

Sun newspaper’s latest bid to overturn injunction involving former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin overturned by judge A high court judge today refused to lift an order banning journalists naming a woman with whom former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin had an “extra-marital affair”. Mr Justice Tugendhat rejected an attempt by the Sun’s publisher News Group Newspapers to have the woman named. She also worked at the Royal Bank of Scotland at the time when Goodwin was chief executive. A privacy injunction had previously prevented the naming of both Goodwin and the woman – who allegedly had a sexual relationship – but last month the order was varied to allow Goodwin to be named. That came after Lord Stoneham, a Liberal Democrat peer, used parliamentary privilege to refer to the existence of the injunction. He also argued that it was in the public interest for it to be dropped. Lord Stoneham told peers: “Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a superinjunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague. “If true, it would be a serious breach of corporate governance and not even the Financial Services Authority would be allowed to know about it.” More details soon…. Injunctions Superinjunctions The Sun Newspapers & magazines News International National newspapers Newspapers Sir Fred Goodwin Banking Royal Bank of Scotland Media law Privacy & the media Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 9, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.