Offer of amends

Nail (Jimmy) v (1) Geraint Jones and (2) Harper Collins Publications Ltd QBD LSG 10 June

There is little point in defendants using the procedure for making an unqualified offer of amends (OOA) under s2 of the Defamation Act 1996 if they are not to be given due credit, in financial terms, for using the system and placing themselves in the hands of the court. An OOA needs simply to comprise the bare bones of the offer, to provide an apology and/or correction, a sum of damages and costs. In the present case the claimant, while accepting the OOA, had declined to accept an offer of £37,500, holding out for considerably more. At the hearing the judge deflated the award that he would otherwise have given by 50%, in order to reward the defendants for their conciliatory approach in using the procedure in the first place, resulting in a sum of only £29,000. As a result, although the claimant had cleared his name, he was left with a potentially large bill of costs as a result of having failed to beat the offer made.